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UNITED STATES OE AMERICA. 



TALKS 



ON THE 



LUBOR+TROUBLES. 



^1><,^ BIT 



REV. C?0. BROWN. 





SEP 6 1886' 



WASH 



mQ 



CHICAGO: 
F. H. Revell, 148 and 150 Madison Street, 

Publisher of Evangelical Literature. 

1 o-> 



COPTBIGHT, 1886, BY F. H. BEYEL& 



PREFACE. 



The following Talks were delivered to an 
audience composed largely of workingmen, one 
each week, last Spring, prior to the Anarchist 
outbreak in Chicago. The series had been 
sometime in contemplation, and preparation 
had been partly made before the recent indus- 
trial disturbances began. Those disturbances 
therefore were not the cause, though they 
hastened somewhat the delivery of the TALKS. 
They were printed week by week in the Du- 
buque Times as they were delivered. The 
public interest which they aroused, indicated 
by editorial comment, newspaper extracts and 
communications addressed to the author ; the 
present great importance of the theme, and the 
request of prominent persons who heard the 
Talks, constitute my apology for consenting 
to the publication. 

CHAS. O. BROWN. 

Dubuque, July, 1S86. 



CDNTENTS, 



I. The Danger. 

II. The Laborer's Grievance. 

III. The Laborer's Foe. 

IV. The Laborer's Fallacy. 
V. The Laborer's Hope. 

VI. Mind and Muscle — Co-Laborers. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE DANGER. 

Industrial commotions and other signs of 
the times all point to some social reformation. 
If we are wise in meeting the question it need 
not be along the track of fire and destruction 
to a goal where all rights shall be overthrown 
as the wild fanatics of communism desire. The 
result may be reached through pain and disas- 
ter, even as the overthrow of slavery was ac- 
complished, only by a bloody war. But the 
results when reached will not be a pandemo- 
nium, where murderers and cut throats shall 
rule, and where they who have succeeded in 
life shall be the only criminals. The new ad- 
justment, if one is to be made, will be toward 
greater righteousness, not toward lawlessness; 
toward peace, not toward anarchy; toward 
brotherhood, not toward hatred. It will bring 
the world to a new understanding of the heart 
ache and scrimping want of millions who are 
willingly bearing its burdens, and it will find 
some way of applying the world's surplus 



6 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

wealth to feeding the hungry and clothing the 
naked. It will bring the laboring man to a 
better understanding of the fact that all great 
affairs require leadership, and authority; and 
it will inspire a new sense of respect and sym- 
pathy on both sides. The employer has his 
burdens as well as the employe. Any just re- 
form will recognize the fact that these two 
classes must always exist, and Jt will not seek 
to embitter one against the other; but it will 
seek for some common ground where each 
may have a better understanding with the 
other. 

The time has fully come when such questions 
must be discussed. We shall only injure our- 
selves by seeking to avoid them. They who 
would avoid the trouble and annoyance of such 
matters, are only imitating the wisdom of the 
ostrich who sticks her head in the sand and 
fancies that she is hidden from danger. 

Numerous indications tell us that whatever 
may be our personal opinions, the time has 
come when discussion can no longer be de- 
layed. Our legislators see it and are making 
haste to introduce bills in state and national 
legislatures to remedy the evils of which the 
laboring classes complain. Some of these bills 
are extremely crude and imperfect, but they 



THE DANGER. 7 

show the tendency of the times none the less. 
They show that the need of reform is felt and 
conceded by our legislators. They show, too, 
that the demand of laboring men for some 
change is a just demand. y It is not for me to 
point out how far these demands are just and 
where they are not. But that something is re- 
quired becomes evident when the demand is 
so universal and the attempt to satisfy it is so 
general. 

Another sign is significant. The great cap- 
italists of the country, men who control a net- 
work of railroads, which affect the commerce 
of the entire nation, are already acknowledg- 
ing the power of the laboring man, in a way 
which would have astonished himself ten years 
ago. It is not so long since Wm. H. Vander- 
bilt dismissed a reference to the will of the 
people with a profane sneer which showed his 
utter contempt of the peoples' rights. One 
whose power in the railroad world is only sec- 
ond to that of Vanderbilt finds to-day that the 
demands of his laborers cannot be dismissed 
in that way. 

The laborer has awakened to the fact that he 
has power also. Let him be just in using it, 
if he would have his cause command respect. 
If any number of Mr. Gould's employes do 



8 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

not choose to work for him it is their right to 
quit. But they must remember that other 
laboring men have their rights. Suppose that 
a corporation desires to employ 10,000 men, 
and that ten thousand men are ready and anx- 
ious to work for that corporation. They are 
poor men and their families need the bread 
that they can thus earn. Suppose, however, 
that several capitalists should employ a suffi- 
cient force of men to keep these 10,000 men, 
who want to work, out of employment and 
should actually do so? Wouldn't the laboring 
men all over the country cry out against the 
injustice of such conduct? Wouldn't they say 
this was another evidence of the grinding op- 
pression of the capitalist against the laborer? 
Yet that is just what 10,000 laborers are now 
doing against their fellow laborers. That is 
not the oppression of capital against labor; 
but of one set of laborers against their broth- 
ers. The laboring men of this country cannot 
afford to oppress each other, just at the time 
when they are demanding a reformation of the 
oppressions of capital and corporations. There 
is a spirit of justice in this country which will 
in the long run respond to any rightful demand 
of the laboring man. But it must be remem- 
bered that the spirit of justice loves one labor- 



/s 



THE DANGER. 9 

ing man as well as another, and one body of 
laboring men as well as another. And the 
spirit of justice will see to it in the long run 
that no body of men shall be permitted to keep 
otheis from laboring, while their families are 
suffering for bread. —\~ 

Another sign of the times is significant. No 
book of the present century, except Uncle 
Tom's Cabin, has sold like Henry George's 
Progress and Poverty. In less than three years, 
according to Mr. Mallock, it passed through 
more than an hundred editions here in Ameri- 
ca. Since then its sale in England and on the 
Continent has been quite as wonderful. This 
is not the place where I shall discuss Mr. 
George's views. I only mention the significant 
fact and say that while he is a most intelligent 
gentleman, and at heart a friend of the labor- 
ing man, his views are revolutionary and ex- 
treme. They propose an entire change in the 
relations of capital and labor, and a revolution 
in the ownership of real estate. It matters not 
that these views are extreme; it matters not 
that they seem to many utterly unreasonable; 
they are being read as a new social gospel by 
hundreds of thousands of people and they are 
affecting the views of millions. You will find 
the book in laborer's cottages, where new 



10 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

books rarely go; you will hear its doctrines 
preached in laboring men's clubs throughout 
this country, in England and France and Ger- 
many. But further, they have affected also 
men of learning. In England and Scotland 
learned bodies of college professors have dis- 
cussed them, and in some instances accepted 
their teachings. If we think that these facts 
are not significant it may be well for us to re- 
member the influence that Uncle Tom's Cabin 
exerted in the abolition of slavery. 

You will not understand me as advocating 
Mr. George's ideas. I am only affirming that 
they can no longer be ignored by those who 
would avert some such revolution as they ad- 
vocate. 

These are matters which are of vital impor- 
tance to the whole land and to every hearth- 
stone in it. We must no longer shrink from 
looking at the facts. We have too long been 
silent on these matters. Too long the blatant 
socialists, like those who address the crowds 
who flock to hear them in Chicago, have been 
permitted to monopolize the discussion of these 
themes. They have posed as the laboring 
man's friend. They have abused the churches 
until many believe that the churches are some- 
how the enemy of the laboring man. They 



THE DANGER. 11 

have abused everything in the name of order, 
and openly declared their intention to destroy 
everything connected with the present ordering 
of society. Do we realize that every Sabbath 
day, while we enjoy the quiet of our homes 
and the worship of our sanctuaries, there are 
many mouthing orators in different cities tell- 
ing audiences aggregating many thousands 
that the time has come for the poor to rise 
against the rich, the laborer against the capital- 
ist; that the time has come for the torch and 
dynamite — for tearing dow r n and dividing up! 
Such mouthings would be entirely harmless 
except to those who utter them, were it not 
that in every great city, and in a growing de- 
gree throughout the land, there is an impres- 
sion that there are real wrongs which need to 
be righted. There is a feeling that in some 
way in this free land every honest man who is 
willing to toil from sunrise to sunset, should be 
able to earn at least a trifle more than a bare 
subsistence for himself and his family. 

Some time ago I clipped the following item 
from one of the Chicago papers. It was 
headed: 

HEATHENISM IN CHICAGO. 

"How can a man who earns $1 a day pay 
$6 a month rent, clothe, feed and care for a 



12 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

sick wife and six children? We hate to see a 
horse pull until he falls under the whip. What 
about a man tugging at such a load, year in 
and year out, with no one to lend a hand? But 
the women — the curse always falls most heavily 
upon them. On the south side the other day 
a woman was found on the floor beside her 
sewing machine in a fainting fit. She had been 
trying to finish a job of 26 cloaks, for the mak- 
ing of which she was to receive $26 — $1 a 
cloak! A poor neighbor helped to bring her 
to, and got her on the bed, and then finished 
the cloaks for her. Did the sick woman get 
the $26, to pay her rent and buy food, for lack 
of which her strength had given way? Not 
one cent of it. The firm refused to pay her 
anything because the finishing was not done 
by herself. 'The Lord have mercy upon them/ 
said the visitor, 'I never saw a human being so 
full of bitterness as was that poor sewing wom- 
an. 5 At last she gave a great lurch of soul, 
to get out of the trough of the sea, and keep 
her little craft from going straight to the bot- 
tom. 'Well,' she gasped, 'God lives, and He 
is just — and He cares — even for me.' " 

There are hundreds of thousands in this 
country who are willing to work, and who do 
work hard, year's end to year's end, who do 
not and cannot succeed in laying up a dollar. 
In such a city as Chicago there are many thou- 
sands of such. They make no complaint. They 
silently endure their sufferings. But as they 



THE DANGER. 13 

see other men enjoying fortunes which never 
cost them a day's honest toil — fortunes which 
have been won by speculative gambling in an 
hour, they have a sense of wrong and a feeling 
that things need re-adjustment. Their sense 
of wrong and injury is not lessened when, as 
is often the case, the very speculation which 
makes one man worth a million or ten million 
dollars — compels the poor man who gets a dol- I 
lar and a half a day to pay ten or twenty cents 
more for every sack of flour he buys. These 
people, thousands of them, have no sympathy 
with communism; they would shrink with hor- 
ror from any contact with the vile wretches 
who talk about murdering every rich man, and 
applying the torch; but it is that sense of 
wrong in the hearts of honest laboring men 
which gives to socialism or communism all of 
the real power which it has in this country to- 
day. 

The men who make the noise at socialistic 
meetings are mostly ruffians and blatherskiteis, 
who are not earning now, and never have 
earned, an honest day's living. They have lived 
by their wits, and they want a better living 
than they have been able to get that way. 
They want to divide what they never helped to ! 
earn. The blatant utterances of these men 



14 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

would never accomplish anything to be feared 
by the country at large if there were not an- 
other class whose alliance they seek, and who 
feel that they are justly earning more of the 
world's wealth than they get. There is a large 
class of persons who feel that, under the present 
order of things, they have a great grievance. 
I am not now saying whether they are right or 
wrong; I am speaking of the facts. It is this 
strong undercurrent of feeling, in bosoms of 
honest toilers, which constitutes the real strength 
of socialism in this country to-day. Socialisic 
orators, as a rule, have no genuine grievance, 
although they prate so much. A man who has 
earned nothing has no right to complain be- 
cause he gets little. But his hope lies in being 
able to kindle this feeling of grievance which 
thousands of honest toilers carry in their bo- 
soms, into a flame of hatred against capital, 
and of anarchy against the government. He 
appeals, therefore, to that feeling. He pre- 
tends to be the friend of the laboring man. He 
commisserates his sufferings; he strives by ev- 
ery means to create the impression that the 
laborer earns everything, and that capital gets 
the most of it. He sets forth what he claims 
to be the greed, the avarice, the selfishness, 
the heartlessness of the proud capitalist, rolling 



THE DANGER. 15 

in luxury, and the misery of the laborer, who 
has earned his wealth for him, living on a crust, 
and his children clothed in rags. 

Thus, by every means, he seeks to inflame 
the passions of the honest laborer, and kindle 
his hatred not only against his employer, but 
against the whole order of things which has per- 
mitted one to be rich while the other is poor. 

And, my friends, the danger of socialism lies 
just there. The danger is that its long-contin- 
ued and frequent appeals may secure the alli- 
ance of thousands who have the feeling that I 
speak of, but who, as yet, would abhor the 
thought of being socialists. Socialism has not 
yet secured the alliance of any great propor- 
tion of the laboring classes. The laboring 
classes constitute the bulk of our population, 
and it will be an unhappy day for this country 
when any great numbers of them become 
"fire and blood" socialists. But many things 
in these days are driving and drawing them that 
way. Everything which has a tendency to in- 
crease what many laboring men regard as the 
grievance of their class helps in that direction. 
Everything which tends to class separation and 
to alienation of employer and employe; every- 
thing which breeds a feeling of discontent and 
hatred in the hearts of the laborers of this coun- 



16 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

try; everything which deepens the feeling that 
society at large is willing to enjoy his toil with- 
out rendering a fair recompense; everything 
which leads him to think that his cause is just, 
and that none are willing to listen to him — ev- 
ery such thing drives him a step further in the 
direction whither the socialist is trying to draw 
him. 

It is time for society at large to recognize 
these facts, and adjust itself to them. The 
people should recognize the fact that there is a 
danger here which can be averted; not a dan- 
ger that the great proportion of the laboring 
classes will ever become socialists. No! We 
have too much confidence in the intelligent self- 
respect of American laborers for that. But 
there is danger that enough of them may be 
infected to make serious trouble for this land. 
What if every tenth laborer should be carried 
away with this horrid infection, and thoroughly 
filled with the notion that the time has come 
for the torch and dynamite? Wouldn't that 
make trouble enough? With more than twenty 
thousand armed socialists in the city of Chicago; 
with thousands in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Pitts- 
burgh, and in every great city of this land, is 
it not time that we were inquiring for some 
means of checking this growth? We are not 



THE DANGER. 17 

afraid that the great body of workingmen in 
this country will ever become socialists of the 
extreme type. But suppose that one-tenth of 
them should become anarchists, with organiza- 
tions in all our great cities. The railroad prop- 
erty ruined at Pittsburgh in 1877, the burnt 
court-house at Cincinnati, and the smouldering 
foundries of Cleveland, are only incidents to 
what might then transpire. 

The country at large would be horrified to 
see, in plain English, the utterances which are 
daily circulated by socialistic journals among 
the laborers of our great cities. Often these 
papers are printed in a foreign tongue, as 
that which circulates among the Bohemians of 
the city of Cleveland. In a recent Century 
article, Washington Gladden advocates the plan 
of translating and circulating these precious 
documents throughout the country, that the 
people at large may understand what is being 
said, and may be properly aroused. 

But in these days there are other tokens than 
the noisy threats and appeals of the socialists. 
The laboring men of this land have awakened 
to the power of organization. They have be- 
gun to assert where recently they only com- 
plained, or were silent. When the traffic of a 
great railway system, controlled by one of the 



18 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

railway kings of the country, can be stopped 
in a single day, and all of the dependent com- 
merce greatly deranged or paralyzed, it is cer- 
tain that some power is at work which can no 
longer be ignored, however much some would 
like to ignore it. A new power, which dares 
to measure swords with a railway millionaire 
like Jay Gould, has suddenly sprung up. We 
may regret the formation of any class into a 
society, by itself, as tending to still further 
broaden the breach already existing; we may 
fear that the organization of one class will lead 
to another, and that between these classes rival- 
ries and hatreds will spring up; we may fear 
that when we have organized classes we shall 
have something like caste, with all of its hate- 
ful brood; or we may fear what one writer has 
recently called "the battle of classes through 
secret organizations;" but all of our fears will 
not change the facts. One large class organ- 
ization is already in the field. It is growing. 
It declares its purpose to continue to grow. 
Moreover, it has already made its power felt 
in various parts of the country. And all of 
this, we are told, is only the beginning. 

Whatever we may wish were the case, and 
however much many may regret the existence 
of such powerful organizations, they are already 



THE DANGER. 19 

in the field. Cool-headed men, who are not 
carried away by prejudices or by fears, con- 
cede that henceforth, and with increasing de- 
gree, the demands of the laboring classes must 
be encountered in organized form. 

How are the facts to be met? It will not do 
even those who have the disposition any good 
to denounce. Denunciation never accom- 
plishes much; and, in the present attitude of 
things, it would be simply idiotic, if not sui- 
cidal. The socialists would rejoice in nothing 
so much. How it would please them to have 
the pulpit and press join in a general tirade of 
abuse, and so drive the laborers of this coun- 
try into their ranks. 

There is a better course. Let it be seen that 
society at large is the laboring man's friend. 
Let us not leave the organized enemies of so- 
ciety and government to pose as the only friends 
of the laborer. Let society at large show a 
disposition to hear his cause fairly stated; to 
listen to his complaints, if he has any to make, 
and to remedy the difficulty, if any remedy can 
be found. Let the churches show, in more 
practical ways, that they are the friends of the 
laboring classes, and that the laboring man in 
plain garb is just as welcome as his employer 
who wears broadcloth; let them show that the 



20 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

wants and woes of the toiling millions can find 
just and fearless expression in every pulpit in 
the land. Such an utterance from the pulpits 
of this country, just at this time, would go a 
long way toward solving the existing difficul- 
ties, especially if it were seen to be supported 
by the pews. It is asserted that the fine cush- 
ions of our churches were never meant for the 
poor, and so the masses are being prejudiced 
against our churches. Multitudes stay away 
from them, and, deserting the teachings of the 
gospel, they are the more open to the appeals 
of socialism. It would go far toward mutual 
understanding, and toward a better adjustment, 
if the pulpit and pew should conspire to make 
the laboring man welcome, and to give a fair 
hearing to his case. I fully believe, my friends, 
that such an attitude at this time would tend to 
the mutual benefit of the laborer and the em- 
ployer; I believe that it would tend toward that 
charity of judgment and that brotherhood of 
man which the gospel commends; I believe 
that nothing would go so far toward restoring 
the laboring masses to the church which they 
have deserted; and I believe, therefore, that 
no duty of the hour could be more sacred, or 
more according to the will of Him who worked 
in a carpenter-shop at Nazareth. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE LABORER S GRIEVANCE. 

I RECOGNIZE at the outset that the present 
is a time of anxiety and disturbance. Labor 
troubles oppress the atmosphere as never be- 
fore in the history of this country. Fifty thou- 
sand men, it is said, are now out of employ- 
ment, not because their employers have turned 
them out, but because they make demands 
which their employers are not willing to con- 
cede. In most of these cases, they could have 
work to-morrow, and wages which would make 
the laborer of Italy or of England feel that he 
had lived to see the day of true labor reform. 
During a visit to, Chicago last week I learned 
of one large class of skilled laborers who have 
been earning from $2 to $5 a day, their work 
being paid for by the piece. Not one of them 
had been receiving less than $2 a day, and the 
better workmen had been receiving $5 a day 
in that establishment. Yet those men are now 
out on a strike for higher wages. What would 
the poor Italian laborer think of $2 a day! 



22 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

Would he not think that the rnillenium had 
dawned if his employer were to hand him $5 
for a day's work? 

I promised to state, this evening, as fairly as 
possible, the laboring man's grievances as set 
forth by their representative men. No person 
ought to take exceptions to a fair hearing. In 
times of excitement, nothing can tend so much 
to produce the desired settlement, as a spirit 
of fairness to hear the whole matter. When 
labor organizations are already in the field and 
are claiming that they have complaints to make 
in behalf of the entire wage-earning class, it 
is too late to refuse them a hearing. The true 
way to conciliate is fairness; and fairness is 
willing to hear both sides. While, therefore, 
I do not hold myself responsible for the views 
of such men as Mr. George, and others who 
in this day speak for the laboring man; while 
I believe that no greater calamity could befall 
the laboring men of this land than to have Mr. 
George's views prevail; and while I purpose in 
the future talks of this series to show that the 
tendency of those views would be to reduce 
labor to a condition worse than that of Russian 
serfdom, I yet hold that the laboring classes 
have a right to be heard. If they had been 
accorded a wider hearing years ago, the pres- 



THE LABORER'S GRIEVANCE. 23 

ent differences between them and capital 
would never have appeared in the present war- 
like aspect. If the pulpit and platform gener- 
ally had been willing to discuss these themes 
ten years ago they would never have accepted 
Mr. George's views so widely as they have; 
and especially would the blatant socialists have 
been without a hearing among them. It is 
our own fault, friends, if we have permitted 
the unreasonable and anarchist element to ob- 
tain such an influence among laboring men. 
No man shall excel me in horror of all that 
goes by the name of socialism or communism 
to-day. The man who talks about burning the 
property of the rich or about murdering his 
more fortunate neighbor, is a vile wretch, too 
ignorant to appreciate, or too wicked to im- 
prove, the opportunities which this free coun- 
try offers to the laboring poor. Such men 
should be sent back to the countries where des- 
potism crushes every aspiration, and where a 
titled aristocracy forbids the hope that a poor 
man may better his condition and become the 
owner of an estate. 

The anarchist is at heart the worst kind of a 
despot. He would, on his own confession, if 
he dared, commit greater acts of despotism and 
oppression to-morrow, than were ever commit- 



24 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

ted by Nero; for while Nero burned one city, 
he would burn every city. He has no appre- 
ciation for the freedom to which he has come. 
Such a man has no business in a country, 
where it is possible for a poor tanner to become 
the greatest commander of his century, and for 
a rail splitter to become the greatest ruler and 
the noblest liberator of all time. 

While, therefore, I shall at this time give a 
fair statement of the laborer's grievances as I 
understand his claims in reference to them, I 
will not be understood as uttering one word in 
favor of any scheme which a socialist would 
approve. I have but small confidence in mush- 
room schemes of any kind. I do not believe 
that any quack remedy can change the condi- 
tions of society in an hour, however desirable 
certain changes may be. He who would en- 
courage the laboring classes to suppose that 
economic arrangements, which are the results 
of centuries of growth, can be changed in a 
day or a year, is the worst foe that the labor- 
ing man has; for he would only excite hopes 
which are doomed beforehand to certain dis- 
appointment; and he would be in danger of 
exciting a revolution which could only end in 
disaster and famine for the laboring classes. 
I The condition of laboring men in this coun- 



THE LABORER'S GRIEVANCE. 25 

try is far superior to that of the laborers in the 
old world. I believe also that the condition of 
laboring men in this country will be relatively 
far better a century to come than it is to-day. 
The tendency of things is in that direction. 
Right minded men of all classes would regret 
to see laboring men led by blatherskites into 
rash acts, which shall set back the wheels of 
progress and destroy their own prospects for 
years to come. That is why I want the com- 
munity at large to talk this matter over with 
him. Let not the laborer start out with the 
belief that any new reform can change his con- 
dition from that of toil to affluence in a single 
day Honest fortunes are not made in that 
way; and surely honest laborers do not want 
dishonest fortunes. If they ever get fortunes 
they want them to come honestly. If any 
change is to be made, it must be in the way of 
helping the laboring man to new and more de- 
sirable conditions of earning the fortune which 
he seeks. It will not come by any scheme 
of riot on the one hand, or of quack legislation 
on the other, which shall give over to him in 
fee simple the property which other men have 
earned. The laboring man of the future as of 
the past must earn a fortune before he can en- 
joy it. 



26 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

On the other hand, it is his privilege to 
hope for and strive after such reforms as shall 
help him, by all lawful means, to increase his 
opportunities and alleviate his burdens. Let 
no man say that such reform, though it must 
be gradual, is impossible. ^This old world has 
moved along the road of human progress too 
grandly hitherto to halt now. j Thousands of 
years ago monarches were everything, and the 
masses were nothing. Millions of men could 
be herded to fight the battles of a king, or to 
pile the pyramid which should be his tomb. 
The lash was over them; they could only obey. 
They might wail; it was nothing! They might 
die; there were other millions to take their 
place beneath the burdens and the lash. But 
God lived then, as he lives now, and presently 
the heart of slumbering humanity and the 
sword of divine justice awoke. Down went 
kings, at whose nod millions had trembled — 
down to an oblivion so deep that you search in 
vain for the paltry record of their names; down 
went empires, whose corner-stone was oppres- 
sion and whose palaces were built by slaves; 
down went hoary systems of abuse before the 
throbbing heart of reform, whose pulses were 
thunders of terror to tyrants, but a music of 
love to the weary and the oppressed; down 



THE LABORER'S GRIEVANCE. 27 

went Rome, leaving her record of imperial 
cruelty to be spelled out from the inscrip- 
tions of a few crumbling marbles; down went 
the feudal system, about which men talked in 
their day as we talk about our little systems 
now, and when it went down it left only a few 
crumbling castles on the hill-tops, to be covered 
by charitable ivy, and to be admired by those 
who dote on ruins; down went British slavery 
in the colonies; down went the colossal system 
of slavery in America. What! Am I to be 
told that the world has, in any direction, 
reached the limit of reform? — I, who can re- 
member the days when the fugitive slave used 
to creep into that station of the underground 
railway which was in my father's garret; I, 
who can remember that, and have been per- 
mitted to see an ex-slave standing among his 
peers on the floor of the United States Con- 
gress? No! Tell that to the moldering dust* 
of men who submitted to the tyranny of Nero 
or the persecutions of Diocletian; tell that to 
the musty mummies of men who permitted 
themselves to be driven in human herds to the 
task of carving sphinxes and piling pyramids; 
but do not tell it to me, for I have had the honor 
of living in the days of Ulysses S. Grant, the 
conqueror, and Abraham Lincoln, the liberator. 



28 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

The true solution of all existing labor trou- 
bles must come through a more general appli- 
cation of the law of human brotherhood. That 
is the gospel law: "We that are strong ought 
to bear the infirmities of the weak;" "Bear ye 
one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of 
Christ. " A more general acceptance of this 
law of human brotherhood would tend imme- 
diately to the relief of distress, and the adjust- 
ment of difficulties between capital and labor. 
It is the lack of this principle which is at the 
bottom of much of the present bitterness on 
the part of the laboring man. It is not alone 
the present sufferings of one who is out of em- 
ployment, which lead to a feeling of riot and 
revolution; but still more is it owing to the 
feeling that the more favored portions of soci- 
ety are indifferent to the sufferings or the im- 
provement of the laboring poor. There is a 
feeling that the favored portion of society is too 
willing to accept the statement that the condi- 
tions of classes are determined by fixed laws, 
and so to dismiss all thought and responsibility 
in the matter. The laboring classes hold that 
the wealthy are too willing to accept the theo- 
ries of Malthus and Adam Smith, without ask- 
ing whether their theories are correct. When 
Malthus first set forth his theory that this world 



THE LABORER'S GRIEVANCE. 29 

was not big enough for all whom God sends 
into it; that there could not be food and cloth- 
ing enough to make everybody comfortable; 
that there must, therefore, always be a degraded 
and suffering class, he was hailed as the apos- 
tle of the titled nobility, and pensioned by the 
rich. I have only put in plain words his doc- 
trine that "population in a continually increas- 
ing degree presses on the means of subsist- 
ence." Have we any right to accept such a 
doctrine as that with complacency? Ought 
there not to be a new and careful review of the 
facts year by year and then extreme reluctance 
before accepting such a theory? But those who 
speak for the laboring man claim that the Mal- 
thusian doctrine has been not only accepted, 
but hailed by the aristocracy as a scientific 
principle which relieves them from all responsi- 
bility for the woes and the wants of their less 
favored neighbors. If Providence has decreed 
that " population shall press on the means of 
subsistence;" if, consequently, there must be 
a large class crying for bread and shivering be- 
cause they are thinly clad, what's the use of 
kicking against the decrees of Providence? My 
friends, no man ever talked that way whose 
stomach was empty, and whose body was shiv- 
ering for want of good clothing. It may be 



30 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

easy for some who have a full wardrobe and a 
bursting larder to talk that way, but, God 
helping me, I never will. I will not kick 
against the decrees of Providence; but I will 
kick with all my might against the theory of 
Malthus. And, moreover, I will do all in my 
power, by voice and pen, to arouse society 
from the selfish composure which that false doc- 
trine is responsible for. So long as there is, in 
any land, a large class of honest toilers whose 
families are liable to suffer for bread, 
while there is plenty of bread in the land to 
feed all, no people should rest content in 
any theory or any so-called economic law, but 
should apply themselves earnestly to the prob- 
lem whose known factors are the open mouths 
of hunger, and whose unknown factor is how 
to fill them. 

There is a law older than political economy 
which was venerable with the hoar-frost of 
centuries before Malthus was born, which de- 
clares that man is his brother's keeper, that we 
ought to bear one another's burdens. As long 
as there are burdens and heartaches and hun- 
ger in this world, no dream of any theorist can 
supersede that law, and no tenet of political 
economy can relieve society from the search 
after a better way which will help to lighten 



THE LABORER'S GRIEVANCE. 31 

the burden and relieve the hunger. In a so- 
called "journal of civilization" one teacher tells 
us that "the saving words for society is that 
each shall mind his own business." That may- 
be a pleasing doctrine for some who are well 
fed and who have goods in plenty laid up for 
years to come; but those who look around on 
their poverty and forward to the poor house, 
cannot be so easily satisfied. The thing which 
more than any other is demanded for the solu- 
tionof existing difficulties, is the sentiment of 
human brotherhood, made warm and effective 
by sympathy for human suffering. 

The most general grievance of the laboring 
man then is this: He claims that he has burdens 
for which some remedy ought to be found; but 
he claims also that whenever he has sought to 
present the facts he has been met by the state- 
ment that these matters are controlled by 
economic laws, and that if his case is a hard 
one the laws of trade are to blame and not 
society. His claim is that society is more 
ready to quote a theory than it is to examine 
the facts, and exert itself to change them. In 
making these statements I am only seeking to 
give what I understand to be the laboring 
man's position. 



32 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

Another element of his grievance is the 
fact, as he claims, that unless some new factor 
is introduced, there is nothing which promises 
him relief in the future. The present century- 
has witnessed such a revolution by labor-saving 
machinery as almost excels that of all which 
has gone before it. Steam and electricity are 
harnessed to machines which can do everything 
but think. We used to say, "everything but 
think and talk," but we have machines that can 
talk in these days. Machines make our boxes 
and barrels — a score or a hundred, where man 
unaided could scarcely have made one; they 
turn out our boots by the case, and our coats 
by the boxful; they draw our wagons and drive 
our diamond-pointed drills through the heart of 
the mountains; they reap our harvests, and lay 
them down on the sea-coast in thousands and 
millions of barrels of flour. Surely one who, 
a century ago, could have foreseen all of this 
mighty improvement in the appliances for get- 
ting at and rendering the stores of nature in the 
markets of the world, would have been justi- 
fied in expecting that all classes of society 
would reap the benefits; that while the rich 
would go richer, the poor would at least ad- 
vance into conditions of comparative comfort, 
and the laboring man would share the general 



THE LABORER'S GRIEVANCE. 33 

prosperity in largely-increased pay for nis toil. 
The complaint is (I say not how just) that this 
is not the case, and the inference drawn is 
that there must be something radically at 
fault, which interferes with what would other- 
wise be the natural result. 

No living man would probably be more gen- 
erally accepted than Mr. Henry George as the 
spokesman of the laboring classes. I will there- 
fore quote his own words (written in 1879 and 
often re-issued since), setting forth the labor- 
er's grievance: "It is true that disappointment 
has followed disappointment, and that discov- 
ery upon discovery, and invention after inven- 
tion, have neither lessened the toil of those who 
most need respite nor brought plenty to the 
poor. * * # We are coming into collision 
with facts which there can be no mistaking. 
From all parts of the civilized world come com- 
plaints of industrial depression; of labor con- 
demned to involuntary idleness; of capital 
massed and wasting; of pecuniary distress 
among business men; of want and suffering and 
anxiety among the working classes. All the 
dull, deadening pain, all the keen, maddening 
anguish that, to great masses of men, are in- 
volved in the words 'hard times/ afflict the 
world to-day." After showing that this state of 



34 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

things prevailed in lands where there are stand- 
ing armies, and where there are none; in lands 
where there is a protective tariff, and where 
there is free trade; in countries where gold is 
the exclusive money standard, in others where 
bimetalism prevails, and in others where the 
money is almost exclusively paper, he goes on 
to say: "Where the conditions to which mate- 
rial progress everywhere tends are most fully 
realized — that is to say, where population is 
densest, wealth greatest and machinery * # 
most highly developed — there we find the deep- 
est poverty, the sharpest struggle for existence 
and the most enforced idleness:" ("Progress 
and Poverty," Ch. I, pp. 9 and 10.) 

In contrast to this, we are shown that in 
newer communities the great differences of con- 
dition are almost removed. None aie very 
rich and none very poor. There is no luxury 
and no destitution. No one makes an easy liv- 
ing; but every one can make a living, while no 
one able and willing to work is oppressed by 
fear of want. But communities grow out of 
the new into the old and settled condition. 
And, strange to say, just as they realize what 
all communities are striving after, then they 
have not only wealth and luxury on the one 
hand, represented by palaces, parks and pave- 



THE LABORER'S GRIEVANCE. 35 

ments, but they have also, and invariably with 
these things, destitution and want, represented 
by the proletariat and the pauper. In England, 
where the causes have been much longer in op- 
eration than in this country, every twentieth 
inhabitant is a pauper, for which statement I 
have the authority of so able a writer as Mr. 
Fawcett. According to the poor-law reports, 
at least one-fifth the community in England is 
insufficiently clad; and medical reports to the 
Privy Council affirm that the agricultural labor- 
ers and large classes of working-people in towns 
are too poorly fed to save them from what are 
known as starvation diseases; while ? large 
proportion of the population leads a life of in- 
cessant toil, with no hope for old age but pen- 
ury and the poor-house; and that one third or 
one-half of the families of the country are hud- 
dled together, six in a room, in a manner ut- 
terly detrimental to health, decency and morals. 
(Rae, "Contem. Soc," pp. 57 and 58.) 

The laboring man claims that the same 
causes are operating in this country, and that 
the tendency is in the same direction. Indeed, 
he complains that the same result in thousands 
of cases has already been reached. The com- 
plaint, then, is that the progress of society thus 
far has been partial to certain classes. The 



36 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

wealth of the country is increasing, but the 
condition of the laboring classes is not improv- 
ing with this increase of wealth — a statement 
which I think altogether too strong. They 
affirm that this vast increase goes not in small 
sums to benefit the many, but in large fortunes 
to swell the number of millionaires and the 
wealth of powerful corporations. They only 
reiterate the doctrine of John Stuart Mill when 
they complain that "the rich are growing richer, 
and the poor poorer. " "What hope," they ask, 
"is there for the laboring man as long as these 
conditions remain?" 

Such, in brief, are the complaints which the 
laboring classes make in reference to the inad- 
equacy of employment and wages. The words 
of Mr. George, though first written in 1879, 
have been repeated by him at various times 
since, and the report of every labor-meeting 
shows an acceptance and repetition of those 
views as the standard doctrines of labor agita- 
tors to-day. 

One of the foremost representatives of the 
laboring men of this country, in a recent ad- 
dress, sets forth another and distinct grievance. 
He complains that the tendency of real estate 
in this country is toward large holdings, which 
place it further and further away from the 



THE LABORER'S GRIEVANCE. 37 

reach of poor men. He complains that the 
many small farms are being united to make 
"bonanza" farms; that immense tracts of land, 
equal in themselves to empires in extent, are 
held by syndicates and corporations on titles 
which are utterly unjust, while the people need 
this land for the establishment of homes and 
the production of bread. He sets forth the 
fact that aliens, living in foreign countries, 
many of whom have never set foot on our soil, 
already own twenty-one million acres of Amer- 
ican lands, and that they are constantly adding 
to their purchases. During a lecture on Col- 
orado, by Professor Marshall, which I recently 
attended, he threw on the canvas a picture 
of that wonder of nature, the beautiful Estes 
Park, hemmed in by mountains which kiss the 
clouds, and set with evergreens like emerald 
gems on its broad lawn — trees which were 
planted by the hand of Almighty God. And 
while we were still gazing with wonder and 
admiration, we were all made happier, I sup- 
pose, by being told that the entire park, emer- 
ald-studded lawn and snow-capped mountains, 
is the exclusive property of a foreign noble- 
man. While I was in Colorado, less than two 
years ago, my attention was called to an im- 
mense system of irrigation here, and to lands 



38 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

there, and mines yonder, all of which, I was 
told, belonged to alien noblemen and the like, 
until I began to wonder how much they would 
kindly leave for Americans! Down in New 
Mexico I visited one cattle-ranch containing 
three million six hundred and eighty-two thou- 
sand (3,682,000) acres, and was told that the 
ranch which joins it on the east contained over 
four million (4,000,000) acres, and was owned 
by a Scotch nobleman! Each of these tracts 
is larger than the State of Connecticut! In 
some parts of the West foreign owners have 
already introduced their tenants and tenant sys- 
tem from across the sea — the same system 
which has brought Ireland to penury and En- 
gland to the verge of revolution, as she is 
this day. 

The speaker to whom I have referred com- 
plains that these causes and others have oper- 
ated to close the unoccupied millions of acres 
of our Western domain against thousands of 
poor men who are not able to pay the prices 
which speculators already demand. He com- 
plains that this cause is already turning the 
tides of immigration back upon the labor cen- 
ters in our great cities, where laborers are now 
so numerous that wages are reduced to the 
point of bare subsistence. Such is the claim. 



THE LABORER'S GRIEVANCE. 39 

And we must all allow that in some particulars 
his statement is too true. If not, why should 
there be such pressure on the Government for 
the opening of a few remaining Indian reser- 
vations, which are so small as to be only dots 
on the map? There is land in plenty which 
is not occupied by settlers, or improved, but 
any person who takes trouble to investigate 
will find that the greater part of this land is 
closed to actual settlers, except at speculators' 
prices. Thus, thousands of men who would 
go West, make for themselves homes, and be- 
come food-producers, are turned back to be 
only food-consumers and competitors in the 
crowded labor-markets of our country. The 
authority who thus voices the grievance of la- 
bor affirms that it can no longer be said: 

"To the West, to the West, the land of the free, 
Where the mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea; 
Where a man is a man if he's willing to toil, 
And shall have for his labor the fruits of the soil." 

He complains that most poor men who now go 
West must labor for others, and that the fruits 
must largely go to strangers. 

These are the leading complaints of the la- 
boring masses to-day. In this statement of them 
I have wholly ignored the fiery and revolution- 
ary utterances of many orators and writers, 



40 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

who think that the world is about to turn over 
the wrong way at their bidding. The sentiments 
to which I have given a hearing in this discus- 
sion are entertained and advocated by cool- 
headed, far-seeing and scholarly men, who are 
already gaining the attention of the thinking 
classes. Only a short time ago Mr. George, 
who is a Christian gentleman, was invited to 
address a large and influential convention of 
the Episcopal Church, held in the city of De 
troit, which he did, advocating sentiments 
such as I have this evening quoted from 
him. When any body of men come, through 
such representatives, to ask a respectful hear- 
ing, we are bound to listen, and if we are 
to answer them in an effective way, it must 
be by more polite arguments than denuncia- 
tion. You cannot any longer dismiss them by 
the bare statement that "population tends to 
press on the means of subsistence," and that 
they who are crowded in that way must be con- 
tent with being crowded. While the laboring 
classes are being instructed by such writers as 
Mr. George, you will have to look up some 
more reasonable argument. 

You can never make the millions believe that 
"population is pressing very hard on the means 
of subsistence," while the great elevators are 



THE LABORER'S GRIEVANCE. 41 

bursting their sides with last year's wheat, and 
while dealers in all sorts of food are complain- 
ing that the market is overstocked. At the 
very time when the great grain-dealers of the 
world are asking, "What on earth shall we do 
with these extra millions of bushels of wheat ?" 
there comes, borne on the wings of lightning 
across the sea, a bitter wail of thousands of out- 
cast poor, who are asking in despair, "O God, 
where shall we get bread for our hunger ?" 
And it comes not alone from the shiftless who 
will not work, but from 50,000 hungry men 
who meet in the open squares of the world's 
metropolis and unitedly say, "We are willing 
to work; we want to work; give us work and 
we will earn our bread; but bread y BREAD, we 
must have — BREAD for our wives and our 
children. " 

Now, my friends, I am free to say that I be- 
lieve that the time is coming when there can- 
not be, in any great city, ware-houses full of 
wheat, and in the same city, 50,000 honest 
men, willing to work, but compelled to be idle 
and to suffer hunger, hearing their children cry 
for bread, as those were a few weeks ago in 
London. I should have a poor opinion of hu- 
man nature and human genius for progress if I 
could not believe that some honorable way will 



42 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

yet be found to apply the stored-up bushels of 
grain to hungry mouths and empty stomachs. 
The world has seen too many great reforms 
accomplished to stop in dismay and despair 
before this demand of common humanity and 
benevolence. I believe that the result will be 
accomplished by lawful means. But as surely 
as God is just, and as surely as He has declared 
Himself the Friend of the poor, so surely will 
this righteous reform be accomplished. 

The reform will not come in one day or one 
year — perhaps not in many years. But that 
does not relieve the world's responsibility to 
search for it with all diligence, and be dissatis- 
fied with ourselves until we have found it. He 
who broke the bread for hungry thousands, by 
the side of a Galilean lake, has breathed too 
much of His spirit of divine love and compas- 
sion into this old world to permit men longer 
to sit idly and indifferently in the presence of 
any suffering. We are not yet afflicted, as En- 
gland is, by an overwhelming pauper class, who 
send forth their "bitter cry of the outcast poor" 
to the ends of the earth; but wherever any suf- 
fering exists we are bound, in the name of a 
noble humanity and a Christian civilization, to 
do all in our power to relieve it; and, above 
all, are we bound by wise foresight to prevent, 



THE LABORER'S GRIEVANCE. 43 

if possible, the causes which have operated to 
the pauperizing of large classes in the old world. 
Why should we not? Why should not our 
generation rise once again to a loftier plane of 
ennobling love for all mankind than any gener- 
ation which has preceded it? Why should not 
the noble vision of the philosopher, John Stu- 
art Mill, become a fact? He says: "We yet 
look forward to a time when society will no 
longer be divided into the idle and the indus- 
trious; when the rule that they who do not 
work shall not eat will be fully applied; * * * 
when the division of the produce of labor, in- 
stead of depending, as in a great degree it now 
does, on the accident of birth, will be made, by 
concert, on an acknowledged principle of jus- 
tice; and when it will no longer either be, or be 
thought to be, impossible for human beings to 
exert themselves strenuously in procuring ben- 
efits which are not to be exclusively their own. " 
(Biog., p. 231.) Mr. Mill did not profess to be 
a Christian, but he never would have uttered 
such a sentiment as that if he had not lived all 
his life in an atmosphere made fragrant with 
the love and the teachings of Christ. The world 
never heard such a sentiment before Christ 
came. 



CHAPTER III 



THE LABORER'S FOE — SOCIALISM. 

ANY inquiry into the labor troubles which 
afflict society throughout the civilized world 
to-day, must take account of the teachings of 
socialism. The laboring man has had some 
great grievances, especially in the old world. 
He has suffered there under wrongs such as 
are fit to turn a stone to tears. Read the labor 
reform speeches of that noble philanthropist, 
the late Earl of Shaftesbury, before the British/ 
Parliament; and if your heart does not respond 
with commingled pity and indignation at the 
pictures he draws and the appeals which he 
makes for the oppressed, then your heart is not 
made like mine. The love which the laboring 
masses of England cherish for the memory of 
that man stands out in striking contrast to the 
hatred they feel for many of the British no- 
bility. 

Next to these grievances socialism is at fault 
for the labor troubles of the world to-day. 
Fichte, the German philosopher (1762-1814), 



THE LABORER'S FOE. 45 

taught socialism as a part of his speculative 
system, and even incurred the suspicion of the 
German government by endorsing the French 
Revolution. But Ferdinand Lassalle (1825- 
1864) and Karl Marx (18 18-1883) were the 
pioneers of organized socialism in Germany. 
Both made their appeals directly to working- 
men, they sought to organize workingmen 
to inflame them with hatred and to hurl 
them as a destructive force against society. 
This fact appears throughout their writings and 
may be seen in the very titles of their books and 
speeches. The theme of one of Lassalle's most 
famous lectures was: "The Present Age and 
the Idea of the Working Class. ,, His most fa- 
mous volume was, "Der Oekonomische Julian; 
oder Kapital und Arbeit" (Berlin, 1864). 

Marx undertook to transform every work- 
ing-men's association into a socialistic lodge. 
His famous communistic manifesto, issued in 
1848, is a statement of what he claimed to be 
the revolutionary situation into which the 
course of industrial development had brought 
modern society. It affirmed that class distinc- 
tions of rich and poor, and wage labor, must 
be swept away. He says, "The communists 
do not conceal their views. They declare 
openly that their purpose can only be attained 



46 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

by a violent overthrow of all existing arrange- 
ments of society. Let the ruling classes trem- 
ble at a communistic revolution. The prole- 
tariate have nothing to lose but their chains; 
they have a world to win. Proletarians of all 
countries, unite!" Marx's idea was commun- 
ion of property, state control, and state dis- 
tributation, to which I shall refer more at 
length presently. But there were those in the 
" International Workingmen's Association, " 
with which Marx had so much to do, who saw 
that such state control would mean the most 
refined and exacting tyranny. They took up 
the tradition of Prondhon, w T ho held that "the 
true form of the state is anarchy." (Rae; 'Con- 
tern, Soc, p. 141.) The whole attempt from 
the outset has been an appeal to the working- 
men of the world. This is seen throughout 
Marx's famous work "Das Kapital," which is 
the sacred book of socialism to-day. In that 
he first clearly states and elaborates the theory 
on which modern socialism rests its claim, that 
? "all wealth comes from labor and that there- 1 
• fore to the laborer it all belongs." From they 
teachings of Marx and Lassalle American so- 
cialism has sprung. Their ideas have come 
among us not only in books and pamphlets, 
but in thousands of living men who believe 



THE LABORER'S FOE. 47 

them. Herr Most is an extremist of this class. 
They hope for a better opportunity in this free 
country than they found in the old world for 
the spread of their pernicious views. 

In his address to the graduating class of 
Amherst College last summer President Seelye 
uttered the following significant words: "There 
is one question of our time toward which all 
other questions, whether of nature, of man or 
God, steadily tend. * * No one will be 
likely to dispute the affirmation that the social 
question is, and is to be, the question of your 
time. " Before this question all others even 
now are fading into a secondary place or the 
deeper shadow of obscurity. For the spirit of 
unrest and turmoil which now pervades the 
laboring masses of this country, the teachings 
of socialists like Mr. George and Karl Marx 
are largely responsible. For that spirit of 
lawlessness and bold rebellion to rightful au- 
thority which appears here and there, among 
them, these socialistic teachers, and others like 
Herr Most, are chiefly to blame. I recall very 
well an article which appeared first some 
twelve or fourteen years ago in a Chicago 
paper. The writer foresaw what we are now 
experiencing. He had by some means come 
into possession of facts and theories promul- 



48 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

gated at the early socialistic meetings of 
that city. He predicted that socialism, unless 
promptly attended to by the government, 
would grow and presently have its organiza- 
tions throughout the country; and that it 
would become first a menace and then a serious 
danger to society and our free institutions. He 
gave facts and figures; told of places where or- 
ganizations were being formed, and of red flag 
doctrines which were being taught. But the 
writer was treated as an alarmist and his article 
was laughed into insignificance. 

We all know enough of the doings of social- 
ists to make it certain that there was truth in 
what he wrote. But the trouble with society 
at large is that it is content with only a surface 
view of the evils which threaten us from this 
source. Tens of thousands of those to whom 
the socialists appeal, in and out of organiza- 
tions, are reading incendiary books and pam- 
phlets on theories of labor, capital, and society 
at large. Hundreds of thousands in this coun- 
try to-day have definite theories of labor and 
finance, which are more or less tinged with 
socialism. These theories are all the more 
dangerous because they are set forth not only 
by godless blasphemers, like Herr Most, but by 
men of religion and morals like Henry George. 



THE LABORER'S FOE. 49 

A socialistic unrest is nothing new in the 
world. It has existed wherever great masses 
of men have for any cause deemed them- 
selves oppressed by those who were more 
fortunate in life. In various forms it has reap- 
peared; at one time in the masses who surged 
through the streets of Rome and demanded 
bread of some imperial Caesar; at a later in 
the fermenting throngs who made the streets 
of Paris run red with the blood of riot and de- 
manded the head of Louis XVI; and in our 
own days in the hungry thousands who press 
upon the statue of Lord Nelson in Trafalgar 
Square, demanding bread for the present and 
legislative reform for the future. 

But the dangerous element of the socialism 
of our day is in the fact that the socialists have 
found advocates like Mr. George of this coun- 
try and Mr. Hyndman of England who have 
reduced the demands of socialism to a political 
science. They have given to the socialism of 
this day what it has never had before — a feel- 
ing that socialism is the true political economy. 
Hitherto socialism has been dominated only by 
desire and confined to mob-like outbursts of 
passion. But to-day, all through the world, 
thousands are persuading themselves that the 
prime features of socialism are based upon 



50 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

scientific principle and eternal right. Willing 
ears are being taught that the whole social 
fabric is constructed upon false principles. 
They are rapidly persuading themselves that 
"all wealth comes from labor ;" that therefore 
"to the laborer all wealth belongs." And 
workingmen who are sensitive about being sus- 
pected of socialism should be careful how they 
quote that sentiment, for it was first taught by 
Karl Marx the great socialist, as the very bed- 
rock of his system. That is the recognized 
corner-stone of socialism to-day. That is the 
grand principle of their socialistic economy. A 
second goes with it. They teach that all pri- 
vate ownership of land is unjust; that the gov- 
ernment should own the land and lease it to 
individual tenants as their needs require. In 
this way they hold that the evils of land mon- 
opoly would be overcome, and our great do- 
main would be saved for the people to whom 
it belongs. These two cardinal principles are 
drawn out at great length and supported by 
ingenious arguments, easily understood, readily 
remembered, and difficult to answer. The dan- 
ger lies in the fact that laboring men generally 
are reading this doctrine, either in the books 
mentioned or in some labor document which 
is a dilution of them. And the evil will cul- 



THE LABORER'S FOE. 51 

minate if the laboring masses are ever per- 
suaded that socialism is based on principle. It 
is the moral element which constitutes the 
strength of any fanaticism. Once persuade 
the restless masses that ownership of land is as 
wrong as the ownership of air would be; once 
persuade them that confiscation and division 
of property are right, and the world will wit- 
ness such an uprising and overturning as no 
fanaticism ever produced before. If it were 
not for this feeling of confidence that the cause 
is somehow just, which the economists of so- 
cialism are exciting, there would be no great 
danger from such men as advocate dynamite 
and the torch. 

While it is true that in thousands of clubs 
and labor organizations these doctrines are be- 
ing taught, what are the people at large doing 
to meet these perverted views? Are the peo- 
ple informing themselves-, and preparing to 
answer wrong theories with the truth? You 
cannot meet a man who has a well defined 
theory, by simply saying that his theory is 
wrong. You must understand it and be able 
to point out wherein it is wrong. Then you 
must be able to give him the truth in its place. 

If, as Milton says, "Childhood shows the 
man as the morning shows the day," would it 



52 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

not be well for us to be enquiring what sort of 
a child this socialism is, which is here among 
us. It wasn't born here, to be sure. But it is 
here, as surely as any troublesome waif was 
ever laid on the marble steps of a palace. 

With the feeling of which I have spoken, 
existing so widely, the utterances of the an- 
archist wing of the socialists become horribly 
significant. 

Professor R. T. Ely in the Christian Union 
for April and May, 1884, gives an able expo- 
sition of Socialism. In it he sets forth the 
doctrines of "The International Workingmen's 
Association," which are violently socialistic. 
They demand "common property, socialistic 
production and distribution, the grossest ma- 
terialism — for their god is their belly, — free 
love, in all social arrangements perfect individ- 
ualism; or in other words, anarchy. Nega- 
tively expressed. Away with private property! 
Away with all authority! Away with the state! 
Away with the family! Away with religion!" 

A scientific paper published in San Francisco 
called Trttth says: "When the laboring men 
understand that the heaven which they are 
promised hereafter is but a mirage, they will 
knock at the door of the wealthy robber, with 
a musket in hand and demand their share of 



THE LABORER'S FOE. 53 

the goods of this life now." Herr Most's filthy 
and blasphemous paper is filled with sentiments 
like this: "Religion, authority and state, are all 
carved out of the same piece of wood— -to the 
devil with them all !" He calls for a "public 
and common up-bringing of children in order 
that the old family may completely abandon the 
field to free love. " Listen to a resolution 
adopted by the "International Workingmen's 
Association ,, at its Pittsburgh meeting, "Agita- 
tion for the purpose of organization; organiza- 
tion for the purpose of rebellion. In these 
few words the ways are marked, which workers 
must take if they want to be rid of their 
chains. * * # There remains but one re- 
course — force !" Again says the Truth: (and 
never did that poor word suffer a greater 
abuse) "War to the palace, peace to the cot- 
tage, death to luxurious idleness. We have 
no moments to waste. Arm! I say to the 
teeth! for revolution is upon you." 

A socialistic meeting in Chicago, shortly after 
the explosions in London Tower, declared: 
"This explosion has demonstrated that social- 
ists can safely go into large congregations in 
broad day light and explode their bombs. A 
little hog's grease and a little nitric acid make 
a terrible explosion. Ten cents' worth would 



54 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

blow a building to atoms. Dynamite can be 
made out of the dead bodies of capitalists as 
well as out of hogs. All Chicago can be set 
ablaze in a minute by electricity. Private prop- 
erty must be abolished, if we have to use all 
the dynamite there is and blow ninety-nine 
hundredths of the people off the face of the 
earth. 

The railroad riots of 1877 cost many lives 
and over one hundred million dollars' worth of 
property; and ten states, reaching from ocean 
to ocean, called on the President for troops to 
quell them. The socialists plainly declare that 
they are getting ready for other and greater 
riots of the same kind. Their publications are 
full of such phrases as these: "Get ready for 
another 1877;" "Buy a musket for the repeti- 
tion of 1877." "Organize companies and drill 
to be ready for another 1877." A writer in 
Nezv Englander, (Jan., 1884,) says there are 
200,000 members of organizations in this coun- 
try who are more or less socialistic. That is a 
very moderate statement, indeed; 400,000 or 
500,000 would have been nearer the truth. 

Rev. Josiah Strong (author of a recent book 
entitled "Our Country," to which I am in- 
debted for many of the facts of this lecture,) 
was present in a meeting at Cincinnati which 



THE LABORER'S FOE. 55 

was addressed by Herr Most. This socialistic 
demagogue, expelled from Germany on account 
of his advocacy of "assassination as a means 
of progress," has been strangely welcomed in 
this free country. His subject on the evening 
in question (just after the Cincinnati riots) was 
"The Coming Crisis of the World and the So- 
cial Revolution." Although it was a rainy 
night the hall was packed with a sympathetic 
audience, who applauded to the echo, every 
bloodthirsty utterance. He declared that if 
the socialists had arisen in their might, during 
those riots, they would have attacked the pal- 
aces of the rich, instead of the jail and the 
court house. 

Such, my friends, are the two prominent 
features of socialism as it exists in this country 
to-day. On the one hand you have teachers 
who are seeking to persuade the masses that a 
world-wide confiscation of property is just, 
and based on principles of true political econ- 
omy. On the other you have incendiary an- 
archists who are striving to inflame the poor 
and excite them to deeds of destruction and 
bloodshed, regardless of right. These two 
classes of writers and speakers make a very 
dangerous team. I have sought also to place 
before you some idea of the strength and head- 



56 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

way, which these ideas have already gained in 
this free country. 

When socialists are asked what they propose 
to do if, unhappily for the peace of mankind, 
their schemes of destruction should ever suc- 
ceed, they are not so ready with an answer. 
They say, "Our first thought is to pull down; 
time enough to think of the rest when we get 
that done. " But evidently the thought upper- 
most in the mind of prominent socialists is 
common ownership of property, and state 
regulation of manufactures and all commerce; 
state supply for all wants; state control of all 
systems of travel and freight. There will be 
no need of gold and silver money; but labor 
checks will secure everything necessary in 
stores which shall contain the produce of labor 
and be managed by government agents. Mr. 
Groveland (in his " Co-operative Common- 
wealth" p. 79, quoted by Washington Gladden 
in March Century^) tells how the thing is to be 
done: 

"Suppose, then, every distinct branch of in- 
dustry, of agriculture, and also teachers, phy- 
sicians, so to form each trade and profession by 
itself, a distinct body, a trades-union (we sim- 
ply use the term because it is convenient), a 
guild, a corporatmn managing its internal af- 



THE LABORER'S FOE. 57 

fairs itself, but subject to collective control. 
Suppose further that for example the 'heelers' 
among the operatives in a factory at Lynn come 
together and elect their foreman; and the 
'tappers/ the 'solers/ the 'finishers' and what- 
ever else the various operatives may be called, 
do likewise. Suppose that these foremen as- 
semble and elect a superintendent of the fac- 
tory, and that the superintendents of all the 
factories at Lynn in their turn elect a — let us 
call him — district superintendent. Again we 
shall suppose these district superintendents of 
the whole boot and shoe industry to assemble 
themselves somewhere from all parts of the 
country and elect a bureau chief; and he, with 
the bureau chiefs of related industries, say the 
tanning industry, to elect a chief of depart- 
ment. However, we do not want too many of 
these chiefs, for we mean to make a working 
body, not a talking body, out of them. We 
mean that these chiefs of department shall 
form the national board of administrators, 
whose function it shall be to supervise the 
whole social activity of the country. Each 
chief will supervise the internal affairs of his 
own department, and the whole board control 
all those matters in which the general public is 
interested. " 



58 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

I have not time this evening to enter upon 
the answer to the various positions held by so- 
cialists. I must leave that for another talk. 
But my object this evening has been to state 
these facts as clearly as possible, for a clear 
statement is the first requisite of an adequate 
answer. And it has been my desire to help 
arouse the law-abiding portion of society to 
the need of putting forth some more adequate 
and organized effort to meet the pernicious 
doctrines which are being sown broadcast by 
the propaganda of socialism. After all of the 
facts which I have this evening mentioned, 
(and I assure you they are only samples of a 
great number,) probably most of you settle 
back comfortably to the soothing thought 
that all of these matters will take care of them- 
selves: that in this free country all such things 
have a tendency to work themselves out. Such 
an attitude is of all things the most to be 
dreaded. There is an ironical aphorism which 
altogether too well represents the general feel- 
ing when it says that "God takes care of chil- 
dren, idiots and the United States. " There is 
too strong a disposition to leave, for God to 
do, the work of prevention and cure which He 
has committed to us, and which will not be 
done unless we do it. Oliver Wendell Holmes 



THE LABORER'S FOE. 59 

may have been right when in answer to the 
question, "When should the training of a child 
begin?" he said, "A hundred years before he 
is born. " Certain it is that influences set in 
motion a hundred years ago affect every child 
of the present generation. A hundred years 
ago our forefathers fought for us immunity 
from foreign oppression, paying for it the best 
blood of this Continent. They laid the founda- 
tion of a mighty republic upon the corner- 
stone of human justice and equality. They 
did not dream that any just complaint of the 
masses could ever be brought against it. They 
did not dream that any socialistic or anarchist 
ferment could ever threaten an uprising of the 
people. They thought they had forever pro- 
vided against all such discontent by commit- 
ting the government itself into the hands of 
the people. But we find to-day that they 
failed to provide for the illegitimate offspring 
called "Socialism," a hundred years before it 
was born. It remains for us to meet the emer- 
gency as best we can, like wise citizens, willing 
to face the facts and to provide the best rem- 
edy. We ought no longer to ignore this 
movement. While we sleep the laborers of 
this country are being taught, by book and 
pamphlet and fiery speech, that they are like 



60 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

Samson, shorn and sightless, grinding the un- 
requited grist of the Philistines. And unless 
we look well Samson's locks will grow while 
we sleep, and his relentless arms will shake the 
two pillars of our American civilization. There 
ought to be in this country to-day a well direct- 
ed movement, to place before the workingman 
of this country such literature as will answer 
the arguments which are seeking to subvert 
him. The socialists are scattering hundreds 
of thousands of documents. How are the 
friends of law and order meeting this activity? 
I am well aware, as I have already said with 
emphasis in these talks, that the great body of 
working men in this country are loyal and true. 
All honor to them. They are no socialists; 
they would scorn the name and the imputation, 
as a certain labor advocate has recently set 
forth. He is indignant that any number of 
laboring men should be thought to be in dan- 
ger of yielding to socialistic principles. His 
indignation does honor to his heart, but not to 
his information. Such an one should be met 
with a spirit of candor and kindness. Many 
are already under the influence of socialistic 
notions who do not know the proper name for 
ideas which they advocate. The hour of dan- 
ger does not wait for majorities. A majority 



THE LABORER'S FOE. 61 

of the laboring men of this country were no 
socialists in 1877, and yet the few who were, 
wrought great mischief, when they joined the 
mob. I do not wonder that they feel annoyed 
at any word which seems to classify honorable 
laborers with socialists. No word of mine 
shall ever do it. Is there not the most press- 
ing need that honorable working men should 
be prompt in everyway to disavow and rebuke 
the socialists who profess to speak for them? 
Then too, our brother, cannot be ignorant that 
socialistic ideas have made great progress 
among laboring men in this country during the 
last ten years. He cannot be ignorant that 
the appeals of socialists are being addressed 
especially to the laborers of the land. He 
cannot be ignorant of the fact that those ap- 
peals are receiving great encouragement from 
some source. Whence? Who bought the hun- 
dred and fifty thousand copies of Henry 
George's book already sold in this country? 
Who are reading it to-day? Is he ignorant 
that thousands of laboring men sympathize 
with that book? Then, he has not studied 
the problem with the care which becomes an 
intelligent laborer. But just to the extent 
that any man sympathizes with the aims of 
that book, he is a socialist. Let us not dis- 



62 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

guise it. Mr. George is a socialist, who would 
have the real property of the people confiscated 
by the government. The cause of socialism is 
one throughout the world. The socialists of 
America rejoice over the riots in Belgium, and 
those of Berlin send their leader to help them 
on. Who are the rioters? Are they not 
workingmen who have been converted to so- 
cialism? Who elected the twenty-four avow- 
edly socialistic members of the German Reich- 
stag in 1884? Did not the socialistic working 
men of Germany! Is it a matter of no alarm 
that the socialistic vote of the German empire 
has advanced as follows: In 1871, 123,975; 
I 1874,351,952; 1877,493,288; 1878,537,158? 
In 1884 the avowed socialists of Germany in 
electing those twenty-four members, cast 700,- 
OOO votes, making an advance of nearly 600,- 
000 votes in thirteen years. ("Our Country/' 
p. 92.) 

But if you say that it is too far away, let us 
come nearer home. Who are the members of 
the "Socialistic Labor Party" and the "Inter- 
national Workingmen's Association" of this 
country? Those societies are avowedly social- 
istic in their constitutions. Who compose their 
thousands of members? Who elected the four 
socialistic aldermen of Chicago in the year 



THE LABORER'S FOE. 63 

1878? Who compose the 25,000 Socialists of 
Chicago, who are already organized there? 
Three members of the Illinois House of Rep- 
resentatives and one State Senator were elected 
the same year (I878), on a platform little short 
of socialism. Who did it? What leads a man 
of President Seeley's known conservatism, can- 
dor and information to declare that "there are 
probably 100,000 men in the United States to- 
day whose animosity to all existing social insti- 
tutions is hardly less than boundless?'' Come, 
brother, tell me why I find stanzas like the fol- 
lowing in a labor sheet published in Chicago 
last week? — 

"Toiling millions now are waking — 
See them marching on; 
All the tyrants now are shaking, 
Ere their power is gone. 

Chorus. — Storm the fort, ye Knights of Labor, 
Battle for our cause; 
Equal rights for every neighbor — 
Down with tyrant laws !" 

We have no "tyrant laws" in this free country, 
brother, and we call those who talk about 
overthrowing our laws " Socialists. " If you do 
not, then we disagree in definitions only; for 
you certainly cannot dispute the facts. Tell 
me, brother, why do we find such head-lines as 
these in representative labor journals? I clipped 



64 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

them from a Chicago paper, printed in the in- 
terests of laboring men (March 26, 1886): — 
"The Labor Crisis;" "An Impending Social 
Revolution, Involving the Question of Mastery 
Between Capital and Labor, Manhood and 
Dollars, God and Satan, Heaven and Hell." 
Tell me, brother, how does that talk differ from 
such as we find in avowedly socialistic organs? 
Don't the socialists talk just that way? You 
say "a few crazy cranks have advocated this 
doctrine. " Could "afew crazy cranks" accom- 
plish all of these results? Are the members of 
the "Socialistic Labor Party" and the "Interna- 
tional Workingmen's Association" a few crazy 
cranks? "Crazy" and "cranky" you may call 
them; but they are not "few." I do not blame 
you for disavowing any connection with social- 
ists. Honor to you for that. But look well 
into the facts before you say again that social- 
ism is not spreading among American work- 
ingmen. We must speak of these things, and 
in the light of facts we must ask the attention 
of intelligent workingmen. 

"America holds the future/" says Matthew 
Arnold. But it is equally true that the future 
holds something for America. What shall it 
be? We have here resources capable of sup- 
porting one billion human beings. Glad- 



THE LABORER'S FOE. 65 

stone was right when he said, "America has 
a base for the greatest continuous empire 
ever established by man." Who can contem- 
plate such statements without emotions of na- 
tional pride? But, on the other hand, who can 
witness the progress of ideas which are now 
among us without serious misgivings? He who 
sees an immigrant train unloading its newly-ar- 
rived hundreds on our Western prairies gets a 
new view of the lines of the poet: 

"I hear the tread of pioneers, 
Of nations yet to be; 
The first low wash of waves, where soon 
Shall roll a human sea." 

It is worth something to live in such a time, 
but the responsibilities of living are correspond- 
ingly great. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE LABORER'S FALLACY: 
"RICH, RICHER — POOR, POORER." 

"There never was and there never will be a 
nation permanently great, consisting for the 
greater part of wretched and miserable fam- 
ilies." So said William Cobbett in his "Cottage 
Economy," more than half a century ago. 
The world has not discovered anything since 
which would disprove that utterance. "Miser- 
able families" make a miserable nation. Wit- 
ness the pauper dependence of Egypt, crawling 
before England's bond-holders, and trembling 
before the Krupp guns of her sea-armament. 
Witness the waning glory and vanishing power 
of the Turkish Crescent in Europe. Depend 
upon it, Mr. Cobbett is rigTit. He has echoed 
a decree of Almighty God in those words?kJ>Io 
nation can at the same time write "misery" on 
the homes of its masses and "mighty" on the 
dome of its Capitol. The dome of any nation's 
power will be decayed by the dust and damp 



THE LABORER'S FALLACY. 67 

of general poverty. We cannot, therefore, as 
loyal citizens, be indifferent to the statement 
so often made in these days, that "the rich are 
getting richer, and the poor poorer. " If that 
statement is true, in all respects, then it ought 
to cause the deepest solicitude, not only in the 
heart of every Christian and every philanthro- 
pist, but in the heart of every patriot as well 
If any law is operating toward the impoverish- 
ment of the masses and the enrichment of the 
few, we must check it or die. The spirit of the 
gospel is no more certainly arrayed against 
such a law than the testimony of history. Every 
crumbling marble of Baalbec or Palmyra, 
every decayed wall of Babylon or Nineveh, 
and every broken column of imperial Rome, is 
a chapter of warning to those who would pan- 
der to the few and pauperise the many.jt In 
view of such truth no thoughtful person can 
hear unmoved the wail of want and misery 
which breaks forth now and then from the 
crowded tenement barracks of our great cities. 
When one of those ten-story death-traps goes 
down, carrying with it thirty or sixty victims 
to their death, we are for the moment aroused; 
and in view of such revelations, as are then 
made, we do not wonder that some, whose 
range of vision is narrowed to a few facts, are 



68 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

impressed that "the poor are yearly growing 
poorer." If the laboring men of this country 
were to look only at such scenes, where pov- 
erty herds its thousands and misery rules as a 
queen, they might easily lose heart. Such 
facts are the stock in trade of agitators, under 
whose manipulation the facts, which are bad 
enough, lose none of their horrors. But, my 
friends, the statement which we are this even- 
ing examining is a very broad one. It under- 
takes to tell us that, as a general rule, from 
Atlantic to Pacific, "the rich are growing richer 
and the poor poorer. " Evidently no few facts 
gathered from certain quarters of our great 
cities, can settle so broad a question. One 
who has a theory to establish may easily con- 
trast the poverty of some "Five Points" with 
the wealth of some " Fifth Avenue" or "Euclid," 
and say, "Behold the misery of the poor and 
the mockery of the rich.'' But such declama- 
tion is not proof that the tendency is toward 
a despoiling of the poor for the benefit of the 
rich. 

The formula of theorists which we are this 
evening examining contains two statements: 
"the rich are becoming richer," and "the poor 
are becoming poorer.'' We may at once and 
without argument admit the first part of the 



THE LABORER'S FALLACY. 69 

formula. Our country has grown with aston- 
ishing rapidity. At the opening of this century 
the United States had only four and a quarter 
millions of people (4,306,446). In i860 the 
population had increased to nearly twenty- 
seven millions (26,922,537). At our last cen- 
sus (1880) we had over fifty millions of people 

(50,155,783). 

Such prodigious growth, unparalled in the 
history of the world, involves, of necessity, 
mighty industries and corresponding growth of 
wealth. The development of natural resources 
in like degree, combining with the capital which 
has been brought over from Europe, means that 
this country has been increasing in wealth; and 
under our system the country grows wealthy 
only by the increasing prosperity of individu- 
als. It must be admitted also that many for- 
tunes have been dishonestly amassed. It is true 
that many have grown rich by means which 
are oppressive and outrageous. When the op- 
erators of some Board of Trade "corner the 
market," force up the price of wheat, and make 
millions on their "deal," they are robbing the 
poor. Every poor man who is thus compelled 
to contribute to a millionaire's palace, by pay- 
ing more than he ought for the bread with which 
he feeds his family, has a just cause of com- 



70 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

plaint. You and I have all been assessed to 
help pay for the marble fronts of the grain- 
gamblers in Chicago. Against that sort of thing 
I protest. I sympathize with every word which 
condemns it. Every additional dime which 
these "operations" have compelled me to pay 
for my flour has been stolen from me. The law 
may shield the men who do it, but the blight 
and mildew of God's righteous curse is on such 
wealth as that. "I have watched this thing a 
long time," said a gentleman of Chicago to me; 
"the man who moves into a marble front on a 
'lucky deal' is only waiting his turn to be closed 
out by the sheriff. I could take you to some 
of the finest residences in the city which have 
changed hands four or five times, in the ups 
and downs of wheat operations." The extent 
to which the evils of this legalized gambling 
have grown are causing many anxiously to in- 
quire how the country is to protect itself. "One 
bushel in seven of the wheat crop of the United 
States is received by the Produce Exchange of 
New York, and its traders 'buy* and 'sell' two 
bushels for every one that is grown in the en- 
tire country. " The cotton plantations yielded 
ope year less than six million bales; but the 
New York Exchange sold thirty-two millions 
that same year. Pennsylvania produces twenty- 



THE LABORER'S FALLACY. 71 

four millions of barrels of oil in a year, and the 
Petroleum Exchanges in the same year sell 
two thousand millions of barrels ! (" Our Coun- 
try," p. 1 17.) The country at large is assessed 
millions upon millions every year to build up 
these dishonest fortunes. It is estimated that 
the South alone has lost over a billion of dol- 
lars since the war, in wheat and cotton specu 
lations. What the many have lost, the few 
have won. And there would be little pity 
wasted on the losers if they were confined to 
unsuccessful gamblers. But no "operation" of 
that sort ever terminates without an assessment 
upon all who buy wheat for their bread, or cot- 
ton for their clothing. Why should members 
of our national Congress be sensitive when the 
chaplain mentions such an evil in his prayer? 
If there are men in Congress who have been 
guilty of this thing, they ought to be weeded 
out by the ballots of workingmen whom their 
gambling has robbed. I have all sympathy for 
those good laws of our land which encourage 
every man to be frugal, and to provide a com- 
petence for his declining years. I rejoice when 
I witness the success of honest industry and 
honest business. "My boys," said a dying 
man, "I leave you a little money, and there 
isn't a dishonest dollar in it. " If all the wealth 



72 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

of this country had been accumulated on that 
plan, there would be less complaint than there 
is to-day. 

Such is one feature of the growth of dishon- 
est wealth. All such growth involves danger, 
for that which is built upon dishonesty is meas- 
uring its way to a downfall. We must find a 
way to correct these evils. They grow from that 
spirit of mammonism which is too predominant 
in our times; which, encouraged by such quick 
means as has too often attended these dishonest 
operations, has led multitudes to seek for wealth 
without desiring to render a fair equivalent. 
What town so small in our day as not to have 
its "bucket-shop," through which regular con- 
tributions are made to the wealth of cosmopol- 
itan operators? And one thing more: The 
men who lose by gambling in a bucket-shop are 
just as wicked as the men who get rich by gam- 
bling on 'Change. Both have the same desire 
and the same principles. One succeeds, and 
the other does not. 

Other dangers attend the spirit of money- 
making which too largely dominates our times. 
When slavery still wielded its lash, the mer- 
chants of Boston mobbed William Lloyd Gar- 
rison and hissed. Wendell Phillips. Why? They 
cared more for their trade with the South than 



THE LABORER'S FALLACY. 73 

for the poor slave. When important Mormon 
legislation was pending not long ago, certain 
New York merchants telegraphed to members 
of Congress: "New York sold $13,000,000 
worth of goods to Utah last year. Hands off!" 
When the love of wealth takes the place of 
fidelity to principle, it will be an unhappy day 
for this country. When any person finds him- 
self verging toward such a disposition; it is high 
time for him to turn to those words of Christ 
which say, "How hardly shall they that have 
riches enter into the kingdom of God." 

Concerning the evils of great corporations, 
which by their wealth have already and noto- 
riously corrupted legislation time and again, I 
have not time more than to allude. There is a 
growing evil which is represented by the fact that 
in 1884, when there were seventy-six United 
States Senators, twenty of them were million- 
aires; and of that twenty, many were million- 
aires many times over. These twenty men did 
not get into the United States Senate because 
they were conspicuous for legislative ability. In 
many cases they have proven conspicuous by 
the lack of it. In several cases they have been 
men whose bad and immoral character was no- 
torious and even infamous. Now, the question 
is, how came such men in the Senate of the 



74 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

United States? No one supposes that their 
election was in response to popular demand. 
But somehow they "got there." Did their 
wealth constitute a mysterious and potent rea- 
son? If ever the time comes when the people 
think that seats in the United States Senate 
are for sale to the highest bidder, they will wipe 
it out. And if the time ever comes when they 
have just reason to think so, it ought to be 
wiped out. We will not have any "House of 
Lords" in this free country. We will have no 
legislature, nor any branch of any legislature, 
into which the poor may not enter, if he is com- 
petent, as well as the rich. 

These are facts lying along the line of our 
national prosperity to which we must give heed 
lest they curse us. We need to be on our 
guard against that spirit of materialism which 
usually grows with wealth. We need more of 
that kind of character which led Agassiz to 
say: "I am offered five hundred dollars a night 
to lecture, but I decline all invitations, for I 
have no time to make money. " But the spirit 
of this age, it is to be feared, can only poorly 
understand such a man. "How much can I 
make?" is the great question. There is an- 
other question which ought always to go with 
that: "What shall it profit a man if he gain the 
whole world and lose his soul?" 



THE LABORER'S FALLACY. 75 

I have not thought it necessary to present 
any figures to prove that wealth has been in- 
creasing. The fact is manifest. The rich have 
grown richer. I have thought it rather suffi- 
cient to point out some of the dangers which 
accompany an increase of wealth, and especial- 
ly some of those dangers which are more prom- 
inently connected with our present line of 
thought. 

But the real significance of the formula 
which we are examining lies in the statement 
that the "poor are growing poorer." When 
the laboring poor come to believe such a doc- 
trine they begin to regard their case as hopeless. 
When they believe that, they are filled with 
that "keen, maddening anguish" which prepares 
the evil-disposed for deeds of riot. That is 
why the socialists harp so persistently on this 
one string. Any man who has no grace in his 
heart and who believes that there is nothing in 
the present order for the poor man, but to 
grow poorer still, will be ready, presently, for 
any lawless deed, which promises relief. 

Now the fact, important to be known just at 
this time is this: the poor are not growing 
poorer. I put that statement squarely over 
against the statement of socialism. In some 
isolated localities the poor are growing poorer. 



76 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

There always have been such cases; there al- 
ways will be until the characters of men are 
changed. No clap-trap panacea of socialists 
will change the condition of things against 
which they complain so bitterly. But setting 
aside special cases, and drawing our general 
statement from a wide induction of the facts 
over the whole field it can be truly said that 
the poor are not growing poorer — but are ad- 
vancing into new conditions of comfort. I am 
aware that many figures are usually tiresome; 
but I am encouraged by the interest which you 
have manifested in those hitherto given in 
these addresses, to present those which are 
necessary to our present inquiry. 

In England the causes which produce pov- 
erty and wealth have been much longer in op- 
eration than here. The problem is worked 
much nearer to a solution there than here. If, 
therefore, "the poor are growing poorer," an 
examination of any certain period of English 
history ought to discover that law in full opera- 
tion. Let us take, therefore, for our compar- 
ison the years 1843, 1 85 1, 1864 and from 1880 
to 1883. Let us say they are poor in England 
who have less that £150 or $750. For such 
families in England the average income in 1843 
was £40, a family; in 185 1 the income of the 



THE LABORER'S FALLACY. 77 

poor had increased to ,£58, a year; while be- 
tween the years 1880 and 1883 the income of 
the poor had increased to an amount between 
£g$ and ^"ioo per year. That is from the year 
1843 t° 1883, a period of forty years, the 
average income of the poor of England, by 
families, increased from about $200 to $450 a 
year — an increase of 130 per cent, in forty 
years. (See Mallock, "Property and Progress'' 
pp. 201-204.) When the socialists of Eng- 
land succeed in setting aside these figures and 
the facts on which they are based, they may 
consider themselves in a fair way to success- 
Things are bad enough yet among the laboring 
poor in places of England. But the facts are 
not hopeless. They do not match with the / 
philosophy of despair. On the contrary, they 
are full of hope. If the income of the labor- 
ing poor of England has made an average in- 
crease of 130 per cent, in forty years, then 
certainly the "poor are not growing poorer" in 
that land. The total income of the poorer 
classes of England to-day is equal to the total 
income of all classes in 185 1, and exceeds by a 
hundred millions the income of all classes as it 
was in 1843. ("Property and Progress," 219.) 
In other words, the laboring classes of England 
to-day are in the same condition as they would 



78 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

have been in 1 85 1 , if the entire income of the 
rich had been divided among the poor pro rata. 
Is there nothing encouraging in these facts? 
Do they not bid the laboring men of England 
and the world to hope for and expect a better 
day? Do they not tell the toiling millions that 
the brighter day is surely coming by the opera- 
tion of causes which will not blot it with the 
eternal disgrace of red-flag socialism? If even 
in England, where the Manchester doctrine is 
in freest operation, these things are true, then 
surely it is time to dismiss Ricardo's "iron law 
of wages" from the accepted truths of political 
economy. If it is true that in forty years the 
average annual income of England's poor in- 
creased 130 per cent., then it cannot be true 
that "wages tend toward the lowest point of 
human subsistence. " 

If there were time it would be extremely in- 
teresting to examine the facts in relation to the 
increase of wealth in England. I can state 
only this: The increase has not been anything 
like 130 per cent, in forty years. The facts 
are ample which prove the statement beyond a 
question. Any doubter can satisfy himself by 
examining the figures given on pages 199-202 
in Mr. Mallock's "Property and Progress." 
While therefore "the rich have been growing 



THE LABORER'S FALLACY. 79 

richer " in England, it is also true that the poor 
have been advancing into conditions of greater 
comfort. It is also true that this advance of 
the poor into comparative comfort has been 
more rapid than the increase of wealth, even 
in England. Remember this whenever you 
hear the oft repeated statement that "the rich 
are growing richer and the poor poorer." If 
any person is so unhappily constituted that he 
prefers to believe that everything is tending to- 
ward darkness rather than light, he shall be 
welcome to his gloom; but if he comes forward 
to dispute my statements, he must in fairness 
answer the facts which I have given. The ten- 
dency is not toward darkness and despair. It 
is toward hope and good cheer. 

But how about our own country? What are 
the facts here? Do the facts warrant any man 
in saying that "the poor are becoming poorer?" 
We may well be puzzled to know just what 
this question means. Does it mean that the 
vagabond and pauper classes are becoming 
poorer? There were paupers in this country 
from the time that the first ship load of immi- 
grants, fresh from the debtor prisons of Eng- 
land, were landed on the banks of the James. 
Have these classes, who nearly three centuries 
ago had nothing, continued to grow poorer? 



80 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

Evidently that cannot be meant. Does it mean 
that the wage-earners of this country receive 
less for their labor than they did one hundred 
or two hundred years ago? Does it mean that 
wages are growing less and less? Perhaps 
that is meant, but it is not true. During 
the past decade certain facts connected with the 
great influx of foreign immigrants to our min- 
ing and manufacturing districts have doubtless 
lowered wages in localities. The census of 
1880 shows a total of 7,870,493 persons en- 
gaged in agriculture. Of this number less than 
one million (812,829) are foreign born. While 
the total number employed in manufacturer's 
trades and mines was 3,837,112, of whom 1,- 
225,787 were foreign born. How long this 
proportion shall hold we cannot tell, nor can 
we tell what elements may soon modify it. La- 
boring men may indeed justly complain if mine 
owners or foundry men go to Congress, asking 
for additional tariff, on the plea that our labor 
will be benefitted, if as soon as they secure 
their additional tariff they forthwith import a 
drove of Italian padrones or Hungarian peas- 
ants to do the work at one-half the former 
wages. Hasn't that ever been done? Who 
can deny it? Do you want the facts? You can 
get them at more than one Pennsylvania mine 



THE LABORER'S FALLACY. 81 

to-day. Such influences are doubtless degrad- 
ing to American labor. 

But, in spite of all that is discouraging, the 
outlook is brighter for the laboring classes in 
America than elsewhere in the world; and, 
when all of the facts are considered, it was 
never brighter than to-day. Mr. George 
thinks that the cure for labor troubles must lie 
in the increase of land-holders — in giving to 
laboring men an opportunity to become farm- 
ers, if they desire. Now, the encouraging fact, 
my friends, is that just that thing is being accom- 
plished in this country. The number of farms 
is increasing more rapidly, in proportion, than 
our population. Notwithstanding our unheard- 
of increase of population, the number of farms 
is increasing still more rapidly. In 1850 we 
had a population of 23,000,000 (in round num- 
bers), and 1,400,000 farms. In 1870 our pop- 
ulation was 38,000,000, and the number of 
farms was 3,000,000. That is, in twenty years 
the number of farms had increased more than 
100 per cent, while the population had increased 
only 65 per cent. This relative increase of the 
number of farms over the increase of popula- 
tion is still maintained; for, according to the 
census of 1880, we had 50,000,000 people and 
4,000,000 farms. 



82 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

Now, what does all of this mean? It means 
that thousands every year are advancing out 
of the condition of day-laborers into the con- 
dition of land-owners and farmers. It means 
that thousands, who last year could not afford 
to own farms, have so far bettered their condi- 
tion that this year they can. The additional 
number of farms represents, in large degree, the 
wage-savings of day-laborers. If the poor 
were in fact becoming poorer, would this state 
of things be possible? If some one should say: 
"But farmers are not among the poor of whom 
we are now talking; any one who is able to own a 
farm is not poor, in any such sense as we are now 
considering, " I should answer: "Exactly so: 
and that's the encouraging feature. Some who 
were so poor that a year ago they could not 
own land are now able to purchase it; and this 
number is increasing more rapidly than the pop- 
ulation, in proportion. Where did the money 
come from? It came from the savings of wage- 
workers, because poor people get their money 
in the form of wages/' 

Now, these facts are well worthy of our at- 
tention. They are drawn from the official cen- 
sus reports of our country, and their accuracy 
cannot be assailed. Of course, if any one is an 
agitator, drawing his miserable living by play- 



THE LABORER'S FALLACY. 83 

ing upon the prejudices of the poor, he can ig- 
nore the facts, as that class usually does. But to 
thoughtful laboring men these facts are full of 
hope. Of course, the increase in the number 
of farms does not represent the only form of 
wage-savings. Fully as many or probably more 
wage-workers have invested their savings in 
other ways. What shall we say, then, of the 
fact that, since 1850, the number of farms has 
increased by a full million more than the pro- 
portionate increase of population? 

It cannot be said that this immense gain in 
the number of farms has come by the subdivis- 
ion of large farms among the children of a sec- 
ond generation, for Mr. George especially com- 
plains that the tendency is squarely in the 
opposite direction — toward the concentration of 
small farms into larger. And doubtless there 
has been at least as much of concentration as 
of subdivision. What then? The increase rep- 
resents the degree of advance out of poverty 
into comfort. The poor are not therefore grow- 
ing poorer. Their condition is not one of hope- 
less retrogression into darkness, but of advance 
into the sunshine of hope and comfort. As- 
suming that at least as many have saved in 
other directions, as those who have purchased 
farms with their savings, we have at least two 



84 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

millions of people in this country to-day who 
are comfortably off, who would have been with- 
out property if it were true that the condition 
of wage-workers were not advancing. 

It is not true that "the poor are growing 
poorer." So far from true is it, that within the 
last half century there has been a proportion- 
ate gain of more than two millions, who have 
advanced out of the condition of poverty into 
that of comfort. Of course, there have been 
vastly more than two millions in the aggregate; 
but these two millions represent the net gain 
over and above the comparative increase of pop- 
ulation. 

A pauper class there always will be, as long 
as there are thousands of people who prefer 
idleness to labor. There will be pauper people 
as long as there are pauper dispositions. A 
few days ago there was an advertisement in our 
papers calling for hundreds of laborers. While 
that advertisement was still standing, the peo- 
ple in the neighborhood where I live were vis- 
ited by several able-bodied men, who were not 
ashamed to beg their bread, and who preferred 
that way of getting their living to the pick and 
shovel. As long as thousands are afflicted with 
such a pusilanimous disposition, there will be 
some paupers in the world. No scheme of di- 



THE LABORER'S FALLACY. 85 

viding the land will help that class. They 
wouldn't get their living from it if each of them 
had an amount equal to all of the land of the 
Dalrymple farms. There are other thousands 
who are struggling manfully with their lot — 
who are working hard to better their condition. 
And it is my privilege to say to them that all 
of the hope which comes from the facts at 
which we have this evening looked belongs to 
them. It is not a hopeless case, as so many 
teach. Millions have succeeded in making for 
themselves and their little ones comfortable 
surroundings in this life. And their number 
is proportionately increasing year by year. 
May God bless them, and succeed them in their 
efforts of honest toil. 

I can tell you how to stop pauperism in this 
country in just four words — "Stop the drink 
traffic. " Liquor is responsible for eight-ninths 
of the pauperism in America. At the time of 
the last census (1880) there were 88,665 paupers 
in this country, of whom 67,067 were in alms- 
houses, and 22,961 were of foreign birth. In 
that same year eight hundred millions of dollars 
were spent for drink in this country — enough 
to give every pauper in the land a fortune. It 
is a lamentable fact that the poorer classes — 
those whose condition is already on the verge 



86 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

of poverty — are contributing more than their 
share to this vast sum. No scheme of any uto- 
pist or socialist will ever be able to relieve the 
poverty of this class, until he finds some way 
to check the sale and drinking of intoxicating 
liquors. "It is impossible — absolutely impos- 
sible'' — said the good Earl of Shaftesbury, "to 
do anything to permanently or considerably re- 
lieve this poverty, until we have got rid of the 
curse of drink." According to the recently 
issued report of the Commissioner of the Na- 
tional Labor Bureau, there were 998,839 un- 
employed men in this country during the year 
1885. In round numbers, we will say a million 
unemployed men. That represents a great 
loss of wages. It represents a loss on the part 
of hundreds of thousands who do not drink a 
drop, and of others, doubtless, who do. But 
do you know, dear friends, if those who drink 
among laboring men would stop this habit — 
worse than useless — they could support every 
idle workman in the country on better wages 
than he ever earned, and have a fine sum left 
over? 

If I could speak to every workingman of this 
country to-night who indulges in drink, I 
would say: "Why throw away this money? 
Why not save it for the good of your family? 



THE LABORER'S FALLACY. 87 

Save it, and you may soon join the number of 
those who are stepping tip from conditions of 
poverty into conditions of comfort. " Say that 
one-half of the vast sum which I have men- 
tioned is spent by laboring men for drink; why 
pay it to the saloon-keepers? Why not save 
it, brothers? Four hundred millions of dollars 
would make a good many homes comfortable 
which are now miserable; would buy a good 
many farms for those who are not now able to 
own an acre. And every man who drinks is 
contributing his share to the eight hundred 
millions which feed the saloon-keepers and rob 
the families of the drinkers. Thus have I tried 
to point out our perils and our hopes. I have 
shown you that, in spite of all adverse circum- 
stances, there is hope. There is hope for the 
toiler who works with brave heart and willing 
purpose. There is hope for the laboring masses, 
and there is hope, therefore, for the future of 
our country. The ship which was launched 
more than a century ago is not going down on 
the breakers of pauperism or plutocracy. God, 
the great and just God, guides us over this 
great and wide sea which no ship ever sailed 
before. 

"Thou, too, sail on, O ship of State! 
Sail on, O Union, strong and great; 



88 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

Humanity, with all its fears, 
With all the hopes of coming years, 
Is hanging breathless on thy fate. 
* * * * * 

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee; 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 
Are all with thee — are all with thee. " 



CHAPTER V. 



THE LABORER'S HOPE. 

The Italian patriot Mazzini uttered a great 
truth when he said, "It is around the standard 
of duty rather than the standard of self-inter- 
est that men must rally to win the rights of 
man." And here also we have a reflected ray 
from Him who first taught the world that we 
should love our neighbors as ourselves. In 
this spirit alone can we hope to solve the social 
problems of to-day, or advance the standard 
of progress beyond the point where we find it. 

In times of heat and anger the spirit of self- 
interest is too apt to control. Each party or 
class selfishly demands what will advance its 
own interest regardless of the interests of so- 
ciety at large. Such a spirit over-reaches it- 
self. It is sure in the end to destroy the very 
good which it seeks; like the man in the tale, 
who, not content with fabulous gifts of jewels 
demanded admission to the cave w r hence they 
came, and found when too late that he was a 
prisoner in that cave. His own greed and sel- 



90 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

fishness were to blame. Let us hope that the 
laboring men of this country are not about to 
repeat that man's folly. A thousand jewels 
have been given to every American citizen. 
He has the priceless jewel of liberty — liberty 
of mind, heart and body. He may think as he 
pleases; kneel at any altar or none as he pre- 
fers; he may go where and work for whom he 
likes, or work for no one. If he has burdens 
which seem unjust and oppressive, the open 
remedy is at hand; he may demand such laws 
as will remedy the evil of which he complains. 
Laws are not in this country like those of the 
Medes and Persians, which change not. They 
can be changed whenever the people will. 
They are constantly in process of changing 
from year to year to year to conform to the 
growing needs of our great republic. When- 
ever the laboring man can get his brothers to 
agree on such changes as will remedy his ills, 
those changes will be made; for in this coun- 
try we live under laws which are made by those 
who are in a large degree elected by ballots of 
laboring men. The American laborer has his 
remedy by lawful means. If laboring men are 
not yet sufficiently united among themselves 
as to what they want; or if they are unable to 
carry a majority of the people for their schemes, 



THE LABORER'S HOPE. 91 

it is certain that the time has not come when 
any such scheme would be just. Will the la- 
boring men of this country throw down this 
load of a freeman's jewels and by force or law- 
lessness shut themselves up in a cave? What 
if agitation and force should so paralyze trade 
and industry that every factory should be 
closed? Would that help to feed the hungry 
and clothe the naked? What if the result of 
labor organization should be so pleasing to 
those who now control it, that they should en- 
large its scope and tighten the reins of its 
power until the individual laborer should be 
nothing and the organization everything? One 
of the profoundest students of American insti- 
tutions, DeTrequeville, said truly that "there 
is no tyranny like the tyranny of a democracy 
when once its current sets in that direction. " 
Let no association of working men be the first 
to experience and illustrate, in this free coun- 
try, the force of that truth. The entire nation 
is jealous of any power which threatens a tyran- 
ny over the individual, or which undertakes to 
dominate over classes. The laboring man has 
it in his power to remedy every real grievance by 
legislation, provided he does not, by rashness 
destroy the confidence of those whose alliance 
he must have to accomplish his purpose. 



92 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

In the opinion of agitators and utopists, who 
are now seeking to arouse a war of classes in 
this country, no one is a friend of the laboring 
man who refuses to accept the wild notions of 
reform which they propose. The honest la- 
boring man has no foe so deadly as these same 
men, who are trying to arouse him to deeds of 
riot which would destroy business confidence 
and inevitably decrease his wages. When busi- 
ness confidence fails, labor is depressed and the 
hungry increased in like degree, every time.^T 

I have hitherto uttered my belief that labor 
is destined to advance into more favorable con- 
ditions than it now enjoys. The time will come 
when the price paid to the poor cloak-makers 
of New York, for the making of a cloak, will 
bear a fairer relation to the price for which it 
is sold. The time is coming when more of the 
results of labor will go to the cottages of the 
poor and less to the palaces of the rich in pro- 
portion. But no human being nor any num- 
ber of them have power to produce such 
changes suddenly. Meanwhile it is worth our 
consideration that every laboring man in this 
country to-day has already certain rights and 
opportunities which would seem like the vision 
of Mirza to the day laborers of England or 
Germany. 



THE LABORER'S HOPE. 93 

A few days ago, in company with a citizen 
of this place, I had occasion to visit the Polish 
quarter of Milwaukee. We were riding with 
a gentleman of that city. He called our atten- 
tion to the comfortable cottages occupied by 
most of those people; to the fact that while 
nearly all are day laborers and while many have 
not been long in this country, yet a large num- 
ber own the houses in which they live. On 
our return ride, near the dividing line between 
the Polish and American quarters, he asked us 
to notice two rows of comfortable tenements, 
one on either side. The aggregate value of 
either row of houses with the grounds, could 
not be less than $10,000, and might be consid- 
erably greater. Each row of those buildings 
belongs to a Polander. One of those Polanders 
came to this country thirteen years and the 
other ten years ago. Neither had anything 
when he came. They began as day laborers, 
working at anything they could find to do. 
One of them began only two or three years 
after the great panic when times were certainly 
as hard as they are now. But somehow he 
managed by economy to save each year a little. 
By wise management and foresight the little 
has become a great deal. 



94 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

I was well acquainted with a carpenter in the 
city of Cleveland, who was a laboring man to 
the day of his death. A long time he worked 
for small wages. But his wife helped him to 
economize and they saved a little, bought a lot 
and built a modest cottage on one of the re- 
tired streets of the city. When they reached 
a point where they had no rent to pay it came 
easier to save. With the savings they bought 
more building materials and by working extra 
hours they soon had a large and more preten- 
tious house adjoining the cottage. They no 
sooner had the large house ready for a tenant 
than a tenant was ready for the house, and 
moved in, paying that laboring man $300 a 
year for the privilege of living in his house. 
So it happened that the poor laboring man 
blossomed into a " bloated landlord !" But he 
was not content with that. He kept on hard 
at work earning day wages and saving a little 
at a time and presently a third house of his 
own was finished and a second tenant moved 
in. At the time of his death that man owned 
many thousand dollars worth of Cleveland real 
estate, although he never ceased to work at 
his trade till death called for him. I have seen 
him more than once returning from his day's 
work with his laboring suit on and his dinner 



THE LABORER'S HOPE. 95 

pail on his arm, while his tenants sat, clad in 
broadcloth and smoking their Havanas. No 
one would have guessed which was the " bloat- 
ed landlord," and which the poor oppressed 
tenants. 

Very recently I met, in his own neat and 
comfortable home, a Holland tailor, who came 
to America four years ago. For more than 
twenty years he had worked hard at his trade 
in his native land, and, by dint of careful and 
scrimping economy, he had managed to lay up 
money sufficient to pay the passage of himself 
and family across the sea, and to one of the in- 
land cities of Michigan. When he arrived there 
he could not speak a word of English, and had 
only $100 in money left. But he went to work 
with a will. He worked, of course, at a great 
disadvantage among people of a strange tongue ; 
but to-day, after four years, he is the owner of 
his home, and is daily advancing toward a com- 
petency for his old age. Both he and his wife 
told me in broken speech, but with looks of 
gratitude which needed no interpreting, that 
they were thankful to be "in this good coun- 
try;" that they have already accomplished what 
they could not have done in a life-time of toil 
across the sea, and that they had lived in greater 
comfort, had better clothing and food, than 



96 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

they could ever have had there. There, as they 
told me, meat was a luxury only for the rich; 
here "even a poor tailor could have meat on his 
table at least once a day." His home, which 
has cost him $1,200 — $900 of which is paid, 
and the rest of which will be by the end of this 
year — would sell for $1,400 or $1,500 to-day. 
Thus already the savings of his thrift and econ- 
omy are increasing in value, and should that 
man live ten or twelve years he will probably 
be a considerable property-holder in that city. 
He has wrought no miracles. But the oppor- 
tunities of this free country have wrought for 
him what would seem a miracle to his old neigh- 
bors in Holland. It goes without saying that 
he has not spent any of his earnings in the sa- 
loons. He is a happy, contented laborer. 
Other men, whom I know in the same city, 
have received just as large pay; have helped to 
support the saloon-keepers; have not supported 
their families as well as he; have not laid up a 
dollar, and are always cursing the "hard luck" 
and "grinding capitalists" who "keep them 
poor." 

I have not mentioned these cases of prosper- 
ity among laboring men because they are rare. 
You all know that they are not. Some of the 
wealthiest men in this city began as day-labor- 



THE LABORER'S HOPE. 97 

ers, working for smaller pay than the men who 
are now demanding an increase and blocking 
the wheels of commerce because they do not 
receive it. You all know full well that until 
recent years there were very few fortunes in 
this country whose owners did not work hard 
for them in their younger days. But I men- 
tion them to ask a few questions. Were those 
men doing right or wrong when they were hard 
at work earning days' wages? "Right/' I hear 
you say; "we believe in honest toil." Were 
they doing right or wrong when they managed 
to lay up a few dollars, and so get a start toward 
a competence? "Right," you say; "we believe 
in compensation for honest industry. " Were 
they doing right or wrong when they took their 
carefully hoarded dollars and bought a piece of 
land? "Right," you say; "we believe in a 
home for the laboring man." Were the first 
two right when they built each a second house 
on his lot, to accommodate some one else who 
had not succeeded in laying up sufficient to 
build his own? "Right," you say; "a man 
who has begun so honestly and continued so 
perseveringly deserves to prosper, as the fruit 
of his industry." 

Who can say that either of these men has 
done any wrong against any class of society? 



98 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

Have they not rather, by honesty, care and in- 
dustry, done their very best to contribute to the 
general prosperity of the entire community? 
Yet, starting as laboring men, and as a result 
of their labor, they became both capitalists and 
landlords. 

Is there any one who would destroy the 
power which those men had to better their con- 
dition? Every one of them was a laboring 
man. How would any agitator go at it to con- 
demn the accumulation of wealth without also 
condemning just such prosperity of labor? To 
condemn them would blight the hope of every 
laboring man in this country; for, however 
poor a man may be to-day, he looks forward 
to the time when he may become the owner of 
his home — the master of one spot on earth 
where he may rear his family and plant the 
standard of his independence, saying, "My 
house is my castle. " Take away that hope and 
you would paralyze the right arm of every toiler 
who is working for dear ones and a golden day 
to come. The thousands of laboring men who 
are giving willing ear to the wretched talk of 
socialists, going to those socialistic meetings, 
as many of them do, from their own cottages 
and comfortable homes, do not stop to consider 
what this denunciation of property and this 



THE LABORER'S HOPE. 99 

abuse of capital means. They do not consider 
that the destruction of property rights would 
carry down the cottages of the poor, as surely 
as the palaces of the rich. You could not in- 
validate the titles of one without destroying 
the foundations of all. Such an overthrow 
would destroy the poor man's hope that he may, 
by careful savings and industry, rise to a con- 
dition of greater comfort', for be sure, when 
you have once admitted into the world the prin- 
ciple of forcibly distributing to some the prop- 
erty which others, by careful industry, have 
earned, it will rule the world with a rod of iron. 
Ricardo's "iron law of wages" would be nothing 
in comparison with it. When such a principle 
becomes law, farewell to incentives to industry. 
None would be willing to earn more than a 
bare subsistence, and no one would save any- 
thing; for the amount saved, however small, 
would tempt the rapacity of those who desire 
to divide without earning. How many honest 
laboring men in this free country desire to be 
bound by such cast-iron conditions? Who 
would desire to be in a state or society in which 
none could hope to better their condition by 
industry and economy? Who would desire to 
change the condition of the laboring man as it 
is to day, in which all may hope for and many 



100 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

attain to something better, for one in which all 
security should cease, and all hope for improve- 
ment should be lost? When the doctrine of 
Rossean, that "every man has a natural right to 
what he needs," and that of Proudhon, that 
" the man who has more than he needs is a thief, " 
are generally accepted, then farewell to any so- 
ciety; farewell to the happiness of the laborer's 
cottage, and the security of his hearthstone; for 
there will always be sure to be some one who 
will " need" something which he has in that cot- 
tage. In that golden day of the socialist's 
dream, when palaces have been leveled and 
vested rights have been destroyed, a cottage 
will be wealth enough to tempt the rapacity 
of some one, and the unsatisfied anarchist will 
still be crying out: "Down with the fortunate! 
Down with the cottage! What business has 
any man to own a cottage and lord it over his 
fellows?" 

When Joseph Baboeuf, the father of modern 
rchism (who discarded his Christian name 
because, as he said, he had no wish for Josephs 
virtues) saw that his views, if accepted, would 
produce such results, he was ready with his an- 
swer: "Let progress cease, and civilization 
decay! Perish the arts! Let everything return 
to chaos, but give us equality. " Such is the 



\T&ft^i 



THE LABORER'S HOPE. 101 

bold scheme of men who have no honorable 
record to preserve, and no future to hope for. 
They desire and are seeking to draw the labor- 
ers of this country into their plans. They wish 
to secure the laborer's help in destroying the 
only hope for advancement that the honest 
laborer has. They want to reduce this country 
to a state of insecurity like that which rules in 
Arabia to-day, where all men are wanderers, 
and no one knows but he will be plundered by 
the next band he meets. Only thieves and cut- 
throats could hope to profit by a state of soci- 
ety in which the rights of property should be 
abolished. 

I have not said that all laborers could do as 
the three did whom I have mentioned. Of 
course, that would be impossible. Each en- 
counters his own difficulties, and some have 
obstacles in sickness and low wages which con- 
tinually keep them down. But I am now speak- 
ing of the fact that, all along, the workingman 
in this country has enjoyed, and still enjoys, 
privileges which his brother of any European 
nation would hail as the day-star of a new and 
exalted era. Go tell some peasant on the Al- 
pine slopes, who returns after a day's toil with 
a little armful of hay — the sole result of his 
labor; go and tell some English miner/whose 



102 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

weary hours of darkness and toil yield him less 
than one-half as much as is paid in American 
mines, and no hope for the future but more toil 
and deeper darkness; go and tell some Russian 
peasant, whose life of semi-slavery knows noth- 
ing better for to-day than a crust of black 
bread and a bowl of black soup, and nothing 
brighter for the future than fear and trembling 
beneath the rod of an imperial despot; go and 
tell some Italian padrone, who creeps forth from 
his miserable hovel, after a meal which would 
be spurned by the pigs in your barn-yard, to 
labor in the marble-quarries, sixteen hours each 
day, for barely enough compensation to pur- 
chase the pauper food which lengthens out the 
dreary span of his misery — go to such men, ye 
sons of American toil, and tell them that you 
live in a country where labor still has some re- 
forms to accomplish, but where it is 'possible 
for a laboring man to purchase a home, and 
where hundreds of thousands are to-day living 
in comfortable homes which they have bought 
with the savings of their industry; tell them 
that thousands of those who are now accounted 
wealthy men began their rise to competency 
from the shops and fields of toil; tell them that 
you know of some men who came hither, fresh 
from the oppressed peasantry of Europe, with- 



THE LABORER'S HOPE. 103 

out a dollar after they landed, who, in ten or 
twelve years in this country, are able to own 
whole rows of houses in one of the most beau- 
tiful cities on this continent; tell them that you 
live in a land where laboring men are permit- 
ted to hold conventions and pass resolutions 
without being dogged by the police; tell them 
that, if resolutions are not heeded, it is your 
privilege to nominate and elect whom you will 
to make your laws and redress your grievances; 
tell them all this, and you will see their look of 
bewildered amazement as they ask, "What do 
I hear? Am I awake, or am I dreaming?" 

I do not think that all men could do as the 
few successful ones whom I have cited; but I 
do believe that thousands, who now spend 
much of their earnings foolishly, could ac- 
complish some such thing. The difference 
lies at the beginning, and that difference often 
consists, not in the greater or less wages, but 
in the ability to economize, which some exer- 
cise and others do not. For it is a matter of 
daily observation that men whose wages are 
precisely the same, and whose families have the 
same number to feed and clothe, get on very 
differently. One of them lays up nothing, and 
thinks that society is his enemy; the other toils 
on, and, after a few years, has a few hundred 



104 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

dollars of savings — capital — which becomes his 
friend, and henceforth helps him to earn. It is 
no secret how the rest of the great success 
comes. The trouble lies in the struggle to ac- 
cumulate the first small savings. 

It is not uncommon for the day-laborer of 
the city, who is receiving from $1.50 to $2.00 
a day, to look with jealousy upon the comfort- 
able homes and surroundings of many farmers. 
There are thousands of wealthy farmers in this 
country to-day whose pioneer life was marked 
by such privations as few in the cities know 
anything about. Alone they made their way 
into the heart of the forest, or far out upon 
the prairies, where for years they had almost 
no privileges of civilization, and only the plain- 
est fare. Attend their pioneer meetings and 
you will hear stories of log-cabins in the forest 
and dugouts on the prairies; of days when 
wheat flour was an unheard-of luxury, and 
when a bear-hunt supplied the only relief from 
corn-meal and potatoes. When they were sick 
they were compelled to doctor each other back 
to health or die. When they remembered the 
comfortable dinners in New York or New En- 
gland, they had only their memories and corn- 
bread to comfort them. They worked as long 
as sunlight showed them where the trees needed 



THE LABORER'S HOPE. 105 

felling, where the sod must be turned, or the 
weeds annihilated. They didn't dream of a 
time when labor could hope to support its sons 
on a system of eight hours a day. They'would 
have starved to death on such a system, and 
raised no rebellion because it was impractica- 
ble. There were no strikes among the pioneer 
farmers, who got their wealth by working six- 
teen hours a day, and who are now envied or 
hated for their prosperity by men who refuse 
to work more than eight. In those pioneer 
days they came West for a purpose. That 
purpose could be accomplished only by a long 
course of privation. This free government gave 
them certain privileges; the rest they had to 
win by clear grit. They won; and when they 
won they had comfortable homes and something 
to educate the children with: 

My sympathies are with the toiling thousands 
of earth every time. But I have no sympathy 
with those who would tyrannize over a portion 
of their toiling brethren, in the name of labor 
reform. There is one little passage in General 
Grant's life for which I admire him as much as 
for any other. It illustrates the manly inde- 
pendence of the man. When he was in England, 
where coats of arms are regular parts of aristo- 
cratic furniture, he was one day asked what 



106 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

device he would choose for his crest. He in- 
stantly replied, "A pair of arms with sleeves 
rolled to the elbow!" 

I recall the days when the fires on the forge, 
twice each day lighted up the old shop in which 
I worked not eight hours only but from six in 
the morning till seven or eight at night. Strikes 
had not become fashionable in those days. We 
were of course very ignorant; but we did not 
dream that we were being oppressed, because 
we saw fit to work a little longer and earn a 
little more. Nor do I now think that I was 
oppressed by those who had at that time risen 
above the necessity of working as I was com- 
pelled to work. On the contrary I thank God 
to-night, as I have many times thanked him, 
for the privileges of this free country, by which 
it was possible for a poor boy to have the ben- 
efits of a college education. None shall excel 
me in earnest desire that everything may be 
done to better the condition of the laboring 
man, and according to my ability none shall 
excel me in effort to that end; but while I live 
and have a spark of gratitude in my heart, I 
will not be silent when the free flag of my 
country is traduced and its privileges slandered. 
There are other countries which do as much for 
the rich as this country does and more. There 



THE LABORER'S HOPE. 107 

are countries which bestow upon them titles of 
knighthood and nobility, the power to retain 
their wealth in their families forever, by the 
law of entail, and the power to lord it over 
their fellows by the decrees of aristocratic par- 
liaments. But there is no country under the 
face of heaven which gives to its laboring mill- 
ions so fair a chance as this. This fact is per- 
fectly known, yet imported socialists whose 
names are too foul to mention, are trying to 
teach the laboring man to hate his country. It 
would be only fair to send these human vultures 
to some place where, with people of their own 
sort, they could show the world what sort of a 
country they could produce. Robinson Crusoe's 
island would be a good place for them. What! 
Tell the laboring men of this free country to 
hate its flag, and to look for an opportunity to 
overturn its free institutions? Times have 
changed within my memory if the laboring 
men of this country are ready in any great 
numbers to listen to such talk. It is but little 
more than a score of years ago that hundreds 
of thousands of thelaboring men of this coun- 
try heard its call in the hour of distress. Then 
forth from plow, anvil and factory loom they 
sprang, a mighty army, saying: 

"We are coming Father Abraham, 
Three hundred thousand more." 



108 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

They went to fight the battles of freedom 
against slavery, of free labor against slave la- 
bor, and they won. Surely this magnificent 
loyalty of the laboring men of this land, will 
not permit itself to be insulted by listening to 
or in any way encouraging the appeals of men 
who would destroy the government. I believe 
the time is near at hand when thousands of 
laborers, who have been silent, whose senti- 
ments have not been expressed by noisy dem- 
onstrations of socialism, will make all evil 
agitators feel the force of their opposition. 



CHAPTER VI. 



MIND AND MUSCLE — CO-LABORERS. 

Several years ago I stood on one of the 
stupendous arches of that magnificent viaduct 
which crosses the river at the falls of St. An- 
thony. Some of the arches were complete; 
others were only begun while the slender frame 
work of wood had already traced the thought 
of the engineer in the air. Last June I rode 
in a car of one of the numerous trains between 
the cities as it rolled over that completed struc- 
ture. The thought of the builder had turned 
to solid stone — as firm beneath our rumbling 
wheels as the earth itself. Then I fell to think- 
ing of that law which combines matter and 
muscle and mind to make values. How much 
would that bridge be worth, to-day, if it did 
not represent thought as well as labor, brain as 
well as brawn? How many cars would those 
arches support if they were not constructed 
upon the most exact scientific principles? On 
the one hand you have one or two thousand 
men who have bared their arms to the work of 



110 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

blasting the rock from the quarry, and shaping 
it block by block for its position in the struc- 
ture. On the other you have the thought of 
one master mind, which marked out the shape 
and position of every block before a blow was 
struck. Now, friends, let us look at this illus- 
tration a minute, for we have here, in small 
compass, all of the elements of that vexed 
question of values. We will say nothing now 
of the engineering skill required to manage 
great quarries; nothing of the thought as well 
as labor required to build and run the railroads 
over which the blocks of stone must be trans- 
ported; but we will suppose the stone for that 
structure to be quarried and transported, and 
here now it lies in vast blocks ready for the 
chisel of the stone cutter. Here, too, are the 
stone cutters with their chisels, and the masons 
with their trowels and stone-hammers. The 
labor element is all on hand ready to build a 
bridge and the material is here ready to be 
built. But suppose that these hundreds of 
laborers find after they get together, that they 
have no plans, nor scientific drafts from which 
to work. You know that these laborers would 
be compelled to be idle. They could not build 
a bridge without the plans drawn by an en- 
gineer. Is it true then that "all wealth comes 



MIND AND MUSCLE. Ill 

from labor ?" When that bridge is completed 
will the whole value of it be due to labor, as 
Mr. George and Karl Marx teach? Do you 
not know that the value of every stone depends 
as much on the thought of the architect as on 
the chisel of the stone-cutter? Suppose two 
cutters: one shapes his work exactly to the 
plan; angle and curve are exact. The other 
does not; he thinks he knows better and takes 
an angle and curvature of his own. At night 
one man's work is valuable; the other's is ab- 
solutely worthless. There are as many hours' 
work in one as in the other; and if it were true 
that "all wealth comes from labor," one man's 
work would be worth just as much as the 
other's. But we all know full well that there 
is a great difference. What makes it? One 
man added to his work the genius of the en- 
gineer's plan; the other did not; hence the dif- 
ference in value. We see then that labor does 
not create all values. Men may shout them- 
selves hoarse with that false doctrine. Thou- 
sands may make themselves believe it; but it 
will not be true any ihe more for that. Genius 
and leadership contribute their share to values. 
In many cases they are quite as essential as 
labor. The stone bridge at Minneapolis or the 
iron bridge at St. Louis or the wire bridge at 



112 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

Brooklyn, could neither have been built by la- 
bor alone. They are all very valuable struc- 
tures and a large part of the value in every 
case was contributed by a quality which can- 
not, by any proper definition be called "labor." 
To return to our illustration: If when the hun- 
dreds of laborers assembled ready to begin 
their work, no one could have been found with 
the skill and genius of a civil engineer, to draft 
the plans and direct the work, then it could 
not have been done. The workmen would 
have been compelled to disperse without an 
opportunity to earn, what otherwise they might. 
Their wages would be in that case absolutely 
dependent upon leadership. So far from labor 
imparting all value in such a case, leadership 
would in fact add to, if it did not create, the 
value of wages. What would the company 
pay those men to work on that bridge without 
a plan? Nothing. Their work would be worth- 
less. But the moment one appears with the 
necessary genius and skill to plan and direct 
their labor, it commands good wages. So I 
say the laborers who wrought on that bridge 
could well afford, if it had been necessary, to pay 
the man who could plan the bridge many times 
as much as any one of them received, because 
their ability to earn many thousand dollars all 
depended on his ability to plan. 



MIND AND MUSCLE. 113 

Wouldn't it be a beautiful thing for laboring 
men if socialists should succeed in leveling 
everything? Wouldn't it help laboring men if 
the socialists should kill off the civil engineers 
and architects, whose genius plans the work 
which keeps them busy? They are among the 
men whom socialists would attack. They are 
usually men whose talent has commanded high 
pay, and who consequently, as a rule, have 
comfortable homes and a little money in the 
bank for a rainy day. In the language of so- 
cialism, "they are robbers." 

If the socialists, like Mr. George, should at- 
tempt to answer by saying that the work which 
a civil engineer does with his brain is labor, 
and that therefore his contribution to the value 
of the bridge is no exception to the rule that 
"all value comes from labor," I should say to 
them, "Such an answer won't do. There is 
such a thing as architectural ability; there is 
such a thing as genius or talent for civil-engi- 
neering; and it is from this impalpable quality 
that the larger part of the value, contributed 
by engineering or architectural work, comes. 
There are some who might spend a life-time 
and master all the mechanical details, without 
acquiring the spark of genius which can con- 
ceive a great plan. There are thousands who 



114 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

understand the principle of the dome as well as 
Michael Angelo, but he alone conceived the 
magnificent plan which led him, when first the 
thought of St. Peter's dome burst upon him, to 
exclaim, "111 hang it in air!" There was only- 
one Angelo, but his one grand thought set 
thousands of laborers to work, and has kept an 
army at work ever since; for the annual re- 
pairs on St. Peter's require the constant serv- 
ices of many laborers. There was only one 
Sir Christopher Wren, but when his genius 
conceived the glory of St. Paul's, that thought 
made work and wages for the thousands, who 
changed the thought into pillar, column, pedi- 
ment and dome. Will any stone-cutter be fool- 
ish enough to deny that the thought of Chris- 
topher Wren gave a great share of the value to 
St. Paul's Cathedral? It was not the drafting 
and planning. I am not now referring to the 
mere geometrical details which many were com- 
petent to work out. I am not now referring 
to anything which can be called "labor," but to 
that greatness of genius which made it possible 
for the great thought to dawn upon his mind. 
Without that, the thousands of chisels and ham- 
mers would never have been set to work on St. 
Paul's. St. Paul's never could have been built 
without the thought of Christopher Wren, any 



MIND AND MUSCLE, 115 

more than without the stone-cutters and ma- 
sons. Its value is therefore the joint product 
of genius and labor — not of labor alone. 

In view of such facts, isn't it a trifle arrogant 
and the least bit shallow for the economists of 
socialism to claim that "all wealth is created by 
labor?" Instead of the world's owing every- 
thing to labor, does not labor owe a vast deal 
to the wealth of human genius 

Suppose a thousand men — opers, we will 
say — honest, hard-working men and excellent 
mechanics, but with little or no skill for com- 
bining, and with only a limited knowledge of 
the way in which stock, when ready, should be 
put upon the market — suppose them to work a 
year faithfully, making honest barrels. Who 
does not know that such a company would 
surely make mistakes? They would make too 
many of this sort of barrels, and too few of 
that. They would overstock the market in one 
direction, and be lacking when demand arose 
in another; for all of these matters require 
careful study, and no man can give the study 
which such matters require while working hard 
at a trade. 

Now, suppose another company of a thou- 
sand coopers, no more capable than the former* 
and no more ready to work; but they are di- 



116 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

rected by one who has skill and executive gen- 
ius. He understands the markets, and he can 
combine the efforts of all the workmen to the 
production of such goods as the market re- 
quires. Does any man in his senses doubt that 
the product of the latter company will sell for 
far more than that of the former? Every one 
knows it will. Why? One company has done 
just as many days' work as the other, and if it 
is true that "all wealth comes from labor," the 
work of one ought to bring just as much as that 
of the other. Why is it, then, that one com- 
pany gets more for its product than the other? 
I will tell you: It is because one company have 
put something besides labor into their product; 
they have put into their barrels executive abil- 
ity and genius for leadership. Without that, 
their barrels would have been worth no more 
than those of the other company. We see, 
therefore, in barrels, as well as bridges and 
cathedral-domes, there is an element of wealth 
which does not come from labor. It is not true 
that "all wealth comes from labor. " It is not 
true, therefore, that "all wealth belongs to the 
laborer," as socialists claim, and as every labor- 
sheet in America also affirms. If everything 
were to be leveled to-morrow, and if all men 
were reduced to an exact equality, the laboring 



MIND AND MUSCLE. 117 

men themselves would be obliged to create 
what they now call "privileged classes." We 
saw that this was just the thing proposed 
by Mr. Gronlund. After everything should 
be leveled, he proposed that the laborers 
should elect " superintendents " and " over- 
seers" and "bureau-chiefs." Indeed! And 
when they are elected, pray, what will they be 
but another set of "privileged classes?" Would 
not their position excite the envy of men like 
Baboeuf and Louis Blanc, who cry, "Down 
with everything, if need be, but give us equal- 
ity?" 

Suppose everything leveled to-morrow, and 
all those who are now regarded with envy to 
to be killed off. That would carry off most of 
the architects and civil engineers of the coun- 
try — probably every one of them. Then sup- 
pose a company of laborers to say: "Come, 
now, we've got things our own way; let's build 
a railroad." How far would they get? Who 
would produce the iron for them? It requires 
something besides muscle to manage iron-mines 
and blast-furnaces. How would they get through 
the first mountain they came to? It requires 
the finest ability to tunnel a mountain. Labor 
could never do it alone. The thousand laborers 
would be obliged to throw down their shovels 



118 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

and wait till some one could be educated to the 
profession of an engineer, before they could 
ever get through the first mountain. And 
when they had him educated and ready for 
work, they would have to pay him much larger 
wages than any one of themselves could earn, 
because his instruments would cost much more 
than theirs and because his training would cost 
very much more. And when they had educated 
him and prepared him so that he by his ability 
could relieve their helplessness, what would 
they have? They would have the beginning 
of a " privileged class ;" for he by a few hours' 
work could plan enough work to keep a large 
company busy. And before they know it they 
would be supporting him, in a way which would 
give him a few hours of leisure each day. 
Labor itself would be in a certain sense abso- 
lutely dependent on such help as he could ren- 
der. And in order to get it they would be 
obliged to offer inducements sufficient to lead 
him to prepare himself by long years of study 
and self-denial. But the very inducements 
which they would offer in higher wages and the 
like, would give him some privileges not en- 
joyed by most. In other words the demands 
of labor itself would create a privileged class. 
And what labor would do under such circum- 



MIND AND MUSCLE. 119 

stances, it has already done, throughout the 
world. What would the iron-molder do with- 
out the draftsman? and what would the con- 
tractor or the carpenter do without the architect? 
The thoughts of these men, are the very pio- 
neers of the great labor operations of the world 
to-day. One man thought of a cable beneath 
the sea; then thousands of men were set to 
work to execute his thought, and the completed 
value was the joint product of the thought of 
the thinker and the blows of the laborer. An- 
other man thought of a mighty railway con- 
necting ocean with ocean — a great continental 
roadway. Then forthwith thousands of labor- 
ers were set to the work of putting that thought 
into "grades" and "fills" and "cuts;" into "ties" 
and "tunnels" and "rails. " Presently the great 
railroad was done. Millions of dollars had 
been paid to laborers, which never would have 
been paid to them, but for the thought of those 
who planned the railroad. When done it was 
the joint product of genius and labor. And 
moreover millions of dollars are paid every 
year to laborers who work in running the trains 
on that road which never would have been paid 
them but for that thought which was turned by 
labor into a railroad. Is it true that "all wealth 
comes from labor?" No; by a thousand illus- 



120 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

trations, the one who takes trouble to think 
can see that there is a large element of wealth 
which comes from thought, genius, plan. Ev- 
ery yard of cloth from the loom; every bushel 
of coal from the mine; every scrap of iron 
from the foundry, represents, in its value, these 
two elements which I have mentioned. 

By a different illustration it could be shown 
with equal clearness that, in many instances 
capital imparts value to certain objects which 
they never could have from labor alone. But 
I will not enter upon that now. My object has 
been by simple and clear illustrations to show 
that it is not true that "all wealth comes from 
labor. " And I think none who properly con- 
sider such illustrations as are occurring every 
day, can for a moment honestly think that "all 
wealth is created by labor. " That is not true. 
If it is not true, it will do nothing but harm to 
teach it. No permanent good can come to 
any one or to any class by teaching a false- 
hood. The laboring man himself would be 
the first to suffer, if that doctrine should be 
generally accepted. If "all wealth is created 
by labor" of course labor would have no need 
of executive ability or inventive genius. Sup- 
pose these elements to be banished from the 
factories of the United States at the sounding 



MIND AND MUSCLE. 121 

of the whistle to-morrow morning? How long 
could the factories be kept running? How long 
would it be before thousands of factories would 
be silent as the grave-yard and hundreds of 
thousands of operatives out of employment? 
The laboring man would very soon find that 
there is an element of wealth which comes 
from some other source than labor; and he 
would find first of all that the value of his own 
wages depends on something besides his labor. 
But suppose the laboring men to say, "When 
we had dismissed the superintendents who are 
the minions of capital, we would elect some 
one of our own number for superintendent." 
Very well. " A rose by any other name would 
smell as sweet." You would still have super- 
intendents. And in the end of such a scheme 
the world would have more tyranny than it 
ever dreamed of before. The civilized world 
has never had a government of such tyrannical 
central power as the socialists themselves pro- 
pose to establish. They propose to have the 
government control everything, even to the 
kind of work a man shall do; the amount of 
property he shall own; the stores where he 
shall buy his supplies and all that. What 
would the word " liberty" mean in such a gov- 
ernment as that? Where was there ever such a 



122 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

grinding tyranny? Where was there ever such 
a set of absolute despots as the "bureau-chiefs" 
of such a government would be? Talk about 
"equality" under such a government! The dif- 
ference of power between Jay Gould and one 
of the brakemen in his employ to-day is not 
one half as great as the difference between a 
common laborer and a "bureau-chief " would 
be under the proposed system. Jay Gould has 
no power to compel any man to work for him; 
but the "bureau-chiefs" would have just that 
power. Before the end of six months under 
such a government, the laboring masses of this 
country would be ready to say: Give us back 
our former liberties and our former ills if that 
is necessary, but let us escape from the tyranny 
of "bureau-chiefs." Just as the people of 
France, who had cut off the head of Louis 
XVI and enacted the "reign of terror," were 
glad to take refuge in the arms of a new em- 
pire under Napoleon I, so the socialists of to- 
day would be glad in a few months to get away 
from their own regime, if they should ever be 
permitted to enact it. 

A second theory of socialism is that all lands 
should be confiscated by the government and 
that there should be no private ownership of 
land. The government, so the socialists say, 



MIND AND MUSCLE. 123 

should periodically re-distribute the land ac- 
cording to the needs of families and individuals. 
If the government would only do this, requir- 
ing all taxes to be paid in the form of ground- 
rent, that would be a panacea for all of the ills 
of pauperism which now afflict society. That 
would cure all of the labor troubles. For pri- 
vate land-ownership is responsible for all of the 
objectionable features connected with vast for- 
tunes and corporate monopolies. So teach 
Mr. George, Mr. Hyndman and a host of others 
who follow their lead. "Ground-rent;" notice 
the word. That's a beautiful word to propose 
to make universal in this 19th century isn't it? 
Now there are great evils connected with the 
loose management of our public lands. I have 
already pointed some of them out in a former 
lecture. These evils must be corrected. An 
awakening public conscience declares they shall 
be corrected. We are not going to permit 
foreign lords and noblemen to establish their 
effete tenant system on our soil. The "grand 
old man" of England has dared to sound the 
death-knell of that system in Ireland. All 
honor to the noble premier, who has dared to 
lift his voice for oppressed Ireland. All honor 
to Gladstone. We may thank God that we 
have lived to see this day. Nor are we going 



124 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

to permit any class of men much longer to steal 
the public domain by the million acres, under 
any pretext. No false claims can much longer 
stand against the rights of those who want the 
land for homes, and are ready to occupy it as 
actual settlers. These evils must be rebuked. 
But, my friends, the scheme of universal con- 
fiscation, proposed by the socialists, would not 
usher in the millenium, as they declare. Have 
they stopped to consider how utterly we would 
be at the mercy of the government if it owned 
every foot of land, and consequently every roof 
over our heads? What could hinder such a 
government from being very tyrannical? What 
a tremendous, centralized power that would be! 
The ownership of land implies the right to turn 
a tenant out of doors. Suppose hard times, 
like a failure of crops, should make it impossi- 
ble for thousands to pay their taxes, or "ground 
rents." Along comes the government agent 
and turns them out. What scheme can they 
find for paying up, and so being restored to 
their homes? They would be a kind of pris- 
oners to the government, compelled to work 
under its orders until the ground-rents were 
paid. It would be morally certain that thou- 
sands would fail to pay their rents; for it is 
now, as it ever has been and ever will be, a 



MIND AND MUSCLE. 125 

fact, in the present order, that thousands fail to 
pay their debts. What would the land-owning 
government do with its delinquent tenants? It 
could not ignore or cancel its claim. That sys- 
tem would be ruinous to any government de- 
pending on "ground-rents" for its revenue. It 
would either be compelled to resort to the most 
tyrannical measures, fastening the people to the 
soil and compelling them to work out their 
rents, or it would be compelled to evict them 
on a scale which would dwarf all the evictions 
which ever made Ireland weep and her children 
cry for bread. Tell me, laboring men, do we 
want a system of universal landlordism in this 
country? Has the history of landlordism been 
so happy across the sea that we wish to adopt 
it, and make it universal? Has the word "ten- 
ant" become so dear to the masses that they 
desire, by universal impulse, to enroll them- 
selves as tenants for life? A brighter day has 
already dawned on Ireland — a day which, in 
its zenith, will see the dream of O'Connor real- 
ized, and which will make good the boast of 
O'Connell. But when the full noon of that 
bright day comes, Irishmen will no longer be 
"tenants." They will be the owners of Irish 
soil. Tell me, American workingmen, is our 
millenium to be ushered in by making the gov- 



126 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

ernment an overgrown " landlord ?" And are 
we all to be made happy by wearing the name 
of "tenants?" Don't believe it. Even the fas- 
cinating rhetoric of Henry George can't hang 
flowers enough on the yoke of tenantry to 
make it seem beautiful to me. What England 
needs to-day is not to make the government a 
universal landlord in place of the many land- 
lords, but she needs some scheme whereby the 
great estates may be divided into small hold- 
ings. She needs to abolish her law of entail 
and hereditary nobility. She needs what we 
have in this free country, where even a poor 
man, by care and frugality, may become the 
owner of land. The instincts of freedom are 
toward individual ownership of the soil. De- 
pend upon it, Mr. George and Mr. Hyndman, 
the heart of humanity is not beating very 
warmly toward your scheme of universal gov- 
ernmental landlordism. The heart of humanity 
beats with the heart of Ireland to-day, when 
she says, "Give my sons a chance to own the 
soil on which they live!" 

But there is no need of arguing this matter " 
from the standpoint of abstract right or econ- 
omic theory. Why not look at a great and 
conspicuous example of the communal land- 
system, which has been before the world in its 



MIND AND MUSCLE. 127 

present form, since the emancipation of Rus- 
sian serfs in 1861. Why doesn't Mr. George 
point to Russia and say to the oppressed labor- 
ing men of America, "There, fellow-toilers, is 
a bright and shining example of the working 
man's paradise! Behold in free and liberty lov- 
ing Russia a land where the poor have their 
rights and where capital never grinds the face 
of labor !" Why didn't he say that! What! 
Wouldn't it apply? Is not Russia free? Can it 
be possible that the poor are oppressed there? 
What do I hear? Do you tell me that "Russia 
is the synonym of despotism in all the world 
to-day?" How can that be, when she has in 
universal practice the very system of land-ten- 
ure which, dreamers are telling us, would cure 
all of our poverty and trouble? In that great 
empire the land is practically owned by the 
government, as Henry George recommends. 
The rural population dwell in communal vil- 
lages and the land is re-apportioned once in 
fifteen years. If a man's family has increased 
he gets more; if it has decreased, he gets less 
accordingly. The people of each commune, 
or village, meet and determine the land appor- 
tionment by vote. They also determine by 
vote when the plowing shall begin; and when 
the seeding; and when the haying and harvest- 



128 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

ing; and so on through the whole round of 
farm operations. No man dares to plow his 
strip of ground until the time appointed by 
vote of the commune. The individual expresses 
his will by voting in the commune and then 
loses his individuality — a fact which illustrates 
again the saying of DeTocqueville that "there 
is no tyranny like that of a democracy, when 
once its current sets in that direction." But 
not only so. A land system like that of Rus- 
sia makes it necessary that the inhabitants of 
each commune should hold together. Hence 
no man can change his residence without a vote 
of the commune; no person can be absent even 
for a few weeks, without consent of the com- 
mune. If he goes for a visit to St. Petersburg 
or Moscow, he must report once in so often, 
and the commune may order him home at 
pleasure — a privilege which it often exercises, 
and very oppressively. If a man has moved 
to a city and is prospering, his prosperity excites 
the envy of his old neighbors and they call a 
meeting of the commune and order him home. 
There is no escaping the order either. All of 
the tremendous police power of Russia is 
pledged to enforce that order. The police pow- 
er of an absolute despot enforces the tyrannical 
decree of a little democracy! Isn't it a lovely 



MIND AND MUSCLE. 129 

scheme? Just the thing for us to adopt in this 
country, is it not? I haven't time to display all 
of its beauties this evening. I have given you 
a glimpse of a system such as Mr. George tells 
us would cure all of the ills of society and 
wipe out the distinction between plutocrats and 
proletarians. It would wipe out pretty much 
everything that an American working man 
holds dear. Wouldn't it? Does it cure all the 
ills of the poor in Russia? Do the poor never 
find fault with the government there? Russia 
is the very center of Nihilism to-day. In no 
other country on earth are the foes of organ- 
ized society so bitter, so determined or so rad- 
ical in their schemes. It is in Russia that the 
ruler of the empire is obliged to shut himself 
up within the walls of his palace and guard 
every door with double ranks of soldiers for 
fear of his life. "But," you say, "the Czar is 
a despot; our ruler is not." I answer, "None 
but an absolute despot could ever rule over a 
country where a system of land-tenure like that 
of Russia prevails. Pass a law in any country 
that the government shall henceforth own the 
land and you thereby make a despot of the 
ruler of that land. Nothing but the heart of 
an angel would keep him from the deeds of a 
tyrant, for his position would carry with it ty- 



130 TALKS ON THE LABOR TROUBLES. 

rannical power. Nor would it help the matter 
if the government should be administered by a 
board of "bureau-chiefs. " The history of 
Athens under the rule of The Thirty Tyrants, 
and of France under the Directory , shows only 
too well that many rulers may concentrate 
their purposes into one purpose of despotic 
power. 

The cure for existing troubles will call for 
great wisdom. No one living may be wise 
enough to say just how that cure will be 
wrought — by what plan. But one thing we 
may be perfectly certain of. It will not come 
by changing the government of this country 
into a land-owning despotism like that of Rus- 
sia. 

There are a great many people in this country 
who prefer America to Russia. If Mr. George 
does not he might manage a colonizing scheme 
for those who prefer the Russian plan. He 
will wait a great while before he succeeds in 
making another Russia out of this free country. 
We are not yet ready to part with that grand 
national anthem; nor with the facts which make 
it dear: 

"My Country 'tis of thee, 
Sweet land of liberty, 

Of thee I sing. 
Land where my father died! 



MIND AND MUSCLE 131 

Land of the Pilgrim's pride! 
From every mountain side 
Let freedom ring! 

"My native country, thee, 
Land of the noble free, 

Thy name I love. 
I love thy rocks and rills, 
Thy woods and templed hills, 
My heart with rapture thrills, 
Like that above. 

"Our Father's God, to thee, 
Author of liberty, 

To thee we sing. 
Long may our land be bright 
With Freedom's holy light 
Protect us by thy might, 

Great God, our King!" 



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A CLASSIFIED LIST OF 

BOOKS OF PRACTICAL WORTH 

SELECTED FROM THE CATALOGUE 



-OF- 



Fleming H. Revell, 

Publisher of Evangelical Literature, 

148 AND 150 MADISON ST„ CHICAGO. 



Special Terms are offered on many of our publications when used 
in Quantities for gratuitous circulation. 



HELPS IN BI3LE STUDY. 



Notes and Suggestions for Bible Readings. Twenty-first 
thousand. Compiled by S. R. Briggs and J. H. Elliott. Large 
i2mo, 262 pages, with complete index, cloth, fine, $1,00; flexible 
cloth, traveler's edition, 75 cents ; cheap edition, paper covers, 
50 cents. 

Acknowledged to be the very best help for Bible readings in 
print. Containing, in addition to twelve introductory chapters on 
plans and methods of Bible study and Bible Readings, over six 
hundred outlines of Bible readings by many of the most eminent 
Bible students of the day. 

This is a book which every Bible student should possess. Those 
who conduct Bible readings will find it most suggestive.— Christian 
Progress. 

Symbols and Systems in Bible Readings. By Rev. W. F. 

Crafts. 64 pp., 25 cents. 

Giving a plan of Bible reading, with fifty verses definitely as- 
signed for each day, the Bible being arranged with much labor in 
the order of its events. The entire symbolism of the Bible also 
explained concisely and clearly. 100 hints upon Bible markings 
and Bible readings are added. 

A year of work upon such a system would yield rich harvests of 
Bible knowledge and spiritual experience.— Sunday School World. 

CHICAGO; F. H. REVELL, 148 <& 150 MADISON ST 



HELPS IN BIBLE STUDY. 

The True Tabernacle. A series of lectures on the Jewish Taber- 
nacle and its typical signification. By George C. Needham ; 
illustrated, cloth, neat, 75 cents. 

C. H. WTs Notes. By C. H. McIntosh. Genesis, 75 cents ; Exo- 
dus, 75 cents ; Leviticus, 75 cents ; Numbers, 75 cents ; Deutero- 
nomy, 2 volumes, each, 75 cents. Complete set, in box, $4.50. 

The notes breathe a very sweet and reverential spirit, and the 
author shows wonderful insight into the heart of truth.— Evangelist. 

Mr. D. L. Moody says of these books : They have been to me a 
very key to the Scriptures. 

Major T>. W. Whittle says: Under God they have blessed me more 
than any books, outside of the Bible itself, that I have ever read, 
and have led me to a love of the Bible that is proving an unf ailing 
source of profit. 

Life and Times of David, King of Israel; or, The Life of 
Faith Exemplified. By C. H. M. Third edition, revised, i2mo, 
200 pp. Cloth, 60 cents. 

The Gospel According to Moses, as seen in the Tabernacle and 
Its Various Services. By George Rogers. New edition, en- 
larged i6mo, 124 pp. Paper, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents. 

This work is specially commended as a most striking unfolding of 
the gospel in the old testament. An absorbingly interesting volume. 

No preacher or teacher should be ignorant of the truth which this 
small volume very simply but forcibly enunciates.— The Record. 

Outline of the Books of the Bible. By Rev. J. H. Brookes, 
D. D. Invaluable to the young student of the Bible as a First 
Lessons in the study of the Bible. 180 pp.; cloth, 50 cents; paper 
covers, 25 cents. 

How to Study the Bible. By D. L. Moody. A valuable little 
work which should be carefully studied by all who desire to enjoy 
the study of the Book of books. Cloth, flexible, 15 cents; paper, 
10 cents. 

Ruth, the Nloabitess; or, Gleanings in the Book of Ruth. By 
Henry Moorehouse. A characteristic series of Bible readings, 
full of suggestions and instruction. Neat i6mo, paper covers, 
20 cents; cloth, gilt stamped, 40 cents, 

Contains many fresh and original remarks, all tending to practical 
usefulness ; a capital bit of commenting on a favorite book.— Spur- 
geon's Sword and Trowel. 

Bibie Readings. By Henry Moorehouse. A series of eleven ser- 
mons of comment and exposition, by one pre-eminently the man 
of one book — an incessant, intense, powerful student of the Bible. 
Neat i6mo, paper covers, 30 cents; cloth, gilt stamped, 60 cents. 

The Date Of Our Gospels. A critical argument and examination 
of evidences, particularly regarding their authenticity and author- 
ship. By Samuel Ives Curtiss, D. D., Union Park Theological 
Seminary, Chicago. Square i6mo, neat, flexible cloth, 50 cents; 
paper edition, 25 cents. 

The argument is winnowed of superfluous words, and presents a 
luminous and brief case.— New York Independent. 

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HELPS IN BIBLE STUDY. 

Current Discussions in Theology. By the Professors of Chicago 
Theological Seminary. Vol. I, cloth, i2mo, 248 pp., $1.00. Vol. 
II, 328 pp., cloth, $1.50. Vol. Ill, 360 pp., $1.50. 

There is nothing in our language of this kind. The American 
student has had to choose between the exhaustive and unremitting 
labors which are the price of first-hand knowledge, and reviews 
which rarely fail of being colored with partiality or prejudice. The 
volume before us is a helpful, fair and trustworthy statement of the 
present position and recent movements of theology.— The Independ- 
ent. 

It may be safely said that from no one book in the English lan- 
guage can ministers gather so much recent information concerning 
the topics treated.— Presbyterian Witness. 

A New Catechism. By Rev. J. T. Hyde. A manual of instruction 
for students and other thoughtful inquirers. Cloth, i2mo, $1.00. 

Short Talks to Young Christians on the Evidences of Chris- 
tianity. By Rev. C. O. Brown. Cloth, neat, 168 pp., 50 cents; 
paper, 30 cents. 

Books that are really useful on the evidences of Christianity could 
almost be counted on one's fingers. One which is singled out from a 
host of others by its plain straight-forward sense is Short Talks to 
Young Christians on the Evidences, by Rev. C. O. Brown. This little 
work is systematic without being technical, chatty without being 
needlessly diffuse, and it is written in a style suitable for the reading 
of elder youth.— Sunday School Times. 

Practical and helpful, just the thing to put into the hands of the 
recent convert. They will richly repay perusal.— Interior. 

The Life of Christ. By Rev. James Stalker, M. A. A new edi- 
tion. Introduction by Rev. George C. Lorimer, D. D. 166 
pp., neat, cloth, 60 cents. 

This work is in truth a "Multum i?iPan?o," containing within small 
compass a vast amount of most helpful teaching, so admirably 
arranged that the reader gathers with remarkable definiteness the 
whole revealed record of the life-work of our Lord in a nutshell of 
space and with a minimum of study. 

Christ and the Scriptures. By Rev. Adolph Saphir. Cloth, 
l6mo, neat, 75 cents. 

To all disciples of Jesus this work commends itself at once by its 
grasp of truth, its insight, the life in it, and its spiritual f orce.— Chris- 
tian Work. 

In those days of doubt and hypercriticism such a volume breath- 
ing a spirit of earnest devotion, lifting the mind to a better concep- 
tion of the immeasurable worth of the Person and the Word, and 
written too, by a son of Israel, cannot but be welcome and helpful. 

Clifton Springs Bibie Readings. Containing the Bible Reading, 
and addresses given at the Conference of Believers at Clifton 
Springs, N. Y., by Messrs. Brookes, Erdman. Whittle, Needham, 
Parsons, Clark, Marvin and others. Square i6mo, 144 pp., cloth, 
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KELPS IN CHRISTIAN WORK. 

Children's Meetings and How to Conduct Them. By Lucy 
J. Rider and Nellie M. Carman. Introduction by Rev. J. H. 
Vincent, D. D. Contains contributions from over forty well- 
known workers among children, and gives the cream of their 
experience. The outline lessons (over sixty in number) diagrams, 
and music will especially commend it to the thoughtful teacher. 
208 pp., cloth, $1.00 net. 

The volume will be heartily welcomed by many having this most 
important part of the religious instruction of the young in hand.— 
Zion's Herald. 

Secret Power ; or, the Secret of Success in Christian Life and Chris- 
tian Work. By D. L. Moody. Fifty-fifth thousand. i2mo vol- 
ume, 116 pp., rich gilt and black stamp, cloth, 60 cents; cheap 
edition, paper cover, 30 cents. 

Every page is full of stimulating thought for Christian workers.— 
Cliristian Commonwealth. 

It is a good statement of the secret of success in Christian Life, by 
one who has some claim to speak on such a theme.— The Outlook. 

This series of earnest and solemn addresses bear throughout that 
stamp of honest, eager earnestness, which is so striking a character- 
istic of the writer's labors as a preacher.— Clerical World. 

Thus Saith the Lord. Compiled by Major D. W. Whittle. 134 
pp., cloth, flexible, 50 cents. 

This little work is a hand-book for the Christian worker— a 
manual of texts collected upon the leading subjects necessarily 
treated in evangelistic and other Christian efforts, especially in 
personal work. 

How to Conduct Inquiry Meetings. By D. L. Moody, and 
The Use of the Bible in Inquiry Meetings. By D. W.. 

Whittle. 40 pages and cover. Price 15 cents. 

The Work of Preaching Christ. By Bishop Charles Pettitt 
McIlvaine. A revised edition of an important little work. 
Paper covers, 15 cents. 

The Prayer Meeting and Its Improvement. By Rev. Lewis 
O. Thompson, with introduction by Rev. A. E. Kittredge, D. 
D. Sixth edition, revised. i2mo, 256 pp., $1.25. 

A valuable, because a very suggestive book.— S. f . Times. 

* * * This is so good a book that we wish we could afford to give 
a copy of it to every young minister. Revive your prayer meetings 
and the churches will be revived. Mr. Thompson says some capital 
things in a telling manner, and, as his pages are f mi of fire and gun- 
powder, we ho.)e certain old, wornou* things among us will be 
exploded, and good things set on fire. A brother who has this book 
handy will be helped to lead lively meetings, e inducting them in 
varied ways, and expatiating on different topics, so as co keep up 
freshness and avoid monotony and dullness.- C. H. Spurgeon. 

Revivals; Their Place and Power. By Rev. Herrick Johnson, D. 
D. Cloth, flexible, 25 cents. 

An admirable discussion of the subject.— Interior, 

We know of no publication that covers the ground so briefly and 

satisfactorily.— Baltimore Presbyterian. 

Dr. Johnson's experience has qualified him to speak upon this 

sub j ect.— Independent. 

CHICAGO: F. H. REVELL, 148 & 150 MADISON 8T. 

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HELPS IN CHRISTIAN WORK. 

To the Work! To the Work! By D. L. Moody. Exhortations to 
Christians. Paper covers, 30 cents; cloth, gilt dies, 60 cents. 

This new work by Mr Moody is in the line of his most successful 
efforts, that of stirring- Christians to active, personal, aggressive work 
for the Master. Mr. Moody has frequently been heard to say that it 
was much better to set 100 men to work than to do the work of 100 
men. This little volume will, we confidently believe, be a means of 
inspiring not hundreds but thousands to more efficient effort in Chris- 
tian life. 



HELPS FOR ENQUIRERS. 



Life, Warfare and Victory. By Maj. D. W. Whittle. 124 pp t , 
cloth, neat, 60 cents; paper, 30 cents. 

This book has been prepared in the midst of evangelistic work, to 
meet the wish often expressed to the writer— that instruction given 
in Bible readings to young converts might be made available 
for their more careful study and permanent use.— Extract from 
Preface. 

The Way to Cod and How to Find It. By D. L.Moody. Fifty- 
fifth thousand. A book for the inquirer and Christian worker. 
Cloth, rich black and gold stamp, 60 cents; paper, tinted covers. 
30 cents. 

Very earnest and powerful, abounding in apt illustrations, striking 
thoughts, and helpful, encouraging words. This book is written in 
the same plain, simple and pointed style that lends such force to his 
spoken words. The volume should find many readers. Those that 
buy it will not be disappointed.— Baptist National. 

The way of salvation is made as clear as simple language and forci- 
ble, pertinent illustration can make it. In two features it is equal to 
anything that Mr. Moody has pi jduced— in close adherence to the 
"W^rd of God, and in profound earnestness— while in simplicity, 
directness of appeal and originality it is superior. It is a great matter 
to send such a work, so full of Christ, ail over the churches, where it 
may, by the work of the Spirit, arrest the careless and move the un- 
godly.— Lutheran Observer. 

The Way and the Word. By D. L. Moody. Forty-fifth thousand. 
Paper, 15 cents; cloth, 25 cents. 

This little work contains a very clear statement on the important 
subject Regeneration, to which is added Mr,' Moody's valuable 
hints on Bible reading. Mr. Moody has used this book by the 
thousand, placing them in the hands of young converts at the close 
of his meetings. 

Grace and Truth Under Twelve Different Aspects. By W. 

P. Mack ay, M. A. Forty-eighth thousand of American edition. 
The English edition has reached a sale of over two hundred 
thousand, besides being translated into German, Spanish, Swed- 
ish, Arabic, Italian, Dutch, Gaelic and Welsh. i2mo, 282 pp., 
paper, 35 cents; cloth, fine, 75 cents. 

Mr. D. L. Moody says of this work: I know of no book in print 
better adapted to aid in the work of him who would be a winner of 
souls, or to place in the hands of the unconverted. 

CHICAGO: F. H. REVELL, 148 & 150 MADISON ST. 



HELPS FOR ENQUIRERS. 

IWly Inquiry Meeting; or, Plain Truths for Anxious Souls. By Rob 
ert Boyd, D. D. Being the experience of a pastor during man- 
years of personal dealing with anxious and careless souls. 64 pp 
15 cents. 

For simplicity, clearness and, force of statement, we have met 
with nothing- that equals this little volume. We can think of no bet- 
ter service a pastor could render to Sunday-school teachers, and 
other guides of souls, than to secure their reading- of these pages. 
Nor cculd inquirers have any better help in their search for truth.— 
The Interior. 

Clad Tidings. By Robert Boyd, D. D. A book for inquirers. 
i2mo, 100 pp., cloth, neat, 50 cents; cheap edition, for circula- 
tion, 25 cents. 

This book has been used largely in connection with the great 
revival meetings both in Great Britain and this land. 

The Soul and Its Difficulties. By H. W. Soltau. Paper, 108 
pp., 8 cents. 

How to be Saved; or, the Sinner Directed to the Saviour. By J. H. 
Brookes, D. D. 120 pp., paper cover, 25 cents; cloth, 50 cents. 

God's Way of Salvation. By Alexander Marshall. A brief 
statement of the Way of Life, with answers to popular objections. 
Each brief page complete in itself, and containing a sermon in a 
nutshell. 48 pages and covers, 5 cents, Per hundred, $2.50. 

Doubts Removed- By Cesar Malan, D. D. Paper covers, 5 
cents; per dozen, 50 cents. 

It contains the clearest statements and illustrations on the subject 
treated we have ever read. 

Welcome to Jesus. By Rev. C. H. Spurgeon. A series of 4 page 
tracts, with first page in attractive illuminated designs, etc. Four 
different series, each containing 32 assorted. Price per pack- 
age, 25 cents. Four different packets issued, Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4. 



POPULAR WORKS FOR ALL CLASSES. 



Prevailing Prayers What Hinders It? ByD. L.Moody. Cloth 
uniform with To the Work ! Heaven, etc. Cloth, 60 cents; paper 
covers, 30 cents. 

An earnest and solemn work, full of helpful hints on the aids 
and hindrances to prevailing prayer. 

This great subject has been the theme of apostles and prophets, 
and of all good men in all ages of the world ; and my desire in sending 
forth this little volume is to encourage God's children to seek by 

?rayer "to move the arm that moves the world."— Extract from 
reface. 

Full Assurance Of Faith. Being some Thoughts on Christian Con- 
fidence. By D. L. Moody. Paper Covers, 15 cts.; cloth, 25 cts. 

CHICAGO: F. H. BEFELL, 148 <& 150 MADISON ST. 



POPULAR WORKS FOR ALL CLASSES. 

Heaven; Where It Is; Its Inhabitants; and How to Get There. By D. 
L. Moody. Eighty-eighth thousand. Tinted covers, 30 cents; 
cloth, 60 cents. 

While adapted to the humble capacity, it will command the atten- 
tion of the mature and thoughtful.— National Presbyterian. 

Mr. Moody's unfaltering faith and rugged enthusiasm are mani- 
fested on every -page.— Christian Advocate. 

Eminently scriptural, earnest and impressive, will be welcomed by 
thousands.— Zion's Herald. 

Characterized by his apt, homely illustrations and not a few pithy 
anecdotes, such as few can equal.— The Advance, 

Twelve Select Sermons. By D. L. Moody. 110th thousand. 
This volume contains those special sermons, which have appeared 
to be most useful, and under which there have been the greatest 
results. Paper covers, 30 cents; cloth, neat, 60 cents. 

Carefully revised by Mr. Moody, they present a volume of choice 
and striking addresses, sure to command a large sale. 

With the effect of these addresses when spoken, the whole land is 
acquainted, and now that they are written, they will tend to keep in 
force the impressions they have already made.— Methodist. 

Mr. Moody's happy style, abounding in striking anecdote and 
illustration, make it a most readable and convincing volume.— The 
Watchman. 

Full of earnest enthusiasm which characterizes everything Mr. 
Moody does, and will be read with interest.— Detroit Free Press. 

Daniel, the Prophet. An amplification and extension of Mr. Moody's 
various lectures on the Life of Daniel. Paper covers, 20 cents; 
cloth, 40 cents. 

A small book, but big as regards the truth it contains. Every 
worker in the Lord's vineyard would be helped by reading it.— Rail- 
way Signal. 

Birth-Day Memorial Text-Book. A handsome little volume with 
a short text for every day in the year, with blank space opposite 
for autographs. Especially attractive for children. 32mo, cloth, 
black and gold stamp, 25 cents; per dozen, $2.50. 

The Practice of the Presence of Cod. By "Brother Law- 
rence." Being a small collection of remarkable letters and con- 
versations of a monk. 64 pp., 241x10, paper cover, 10 cents ; per 
dozen, 75 cents. 

Envelope Series of Tracts. By H. W. S., from "The Christian's 
Secret of a Happy Life," comprising the following: 
How to Enter into the Life. Faith: What it is. 

Difficulties Concerning Consecration. Is God in Everything? 
Difficulties Concerning Guidance. The Joy of Obedience. 

Difficulties Concerning Faith. Practical Results. 

Sold only in packets of one dozen copies. May be had either 
assorted or all of the same kind. Price, per packet, 20 cents. 

They will form an excellent collection of tracts for distribution 
by those who wish their friends to share the "Life that is hid with 
Christ." 

CHICAGO: F. H. BEFELL, US & 150 MADISON ST. 

7 



POPULAR WORKS FOR ALL CLASSES. 

The Scarlet Line. A most suggestive tract upon Joshua II and VI, 
showing the close connection between the type of the Old Testa- 
ment and the Antitype of the New. 36 pp. and cover, 5 cents ; 
per hundred, $3.00. 

Words of Worth, from the Chicago Christian Convention. A verba- 
tim report of the addresses before the Convention of October, 1882. 

i2mo, 134 pp., paper, 25 cents. 

The addresses by such men as Rev. Marcus Rainsford, Rev. Charles 
Spurgeon, Dr. W. P. Mackay, Rev. A. T. Pierson, D. D. and others, 
will be welcomed by many. 

The Ministry of Healing; or, Miracles of Cure in all Ages. By 
Rev. A. J. Gordon, D. D. Third edition, i2mo, fine cloth, 250 
pp., $1.25. 

Proofs of the practice of healing' by the prayer of faith gathered 
from all ages, with well attested instances from Augustine, Luther, 
Baxter, Bengel, Irving-, Erskine, Christlieb and others. 

The history of the doctrine as held by Waldenses, Moravians, 
Covenanters, Huguenots, Friends, Baptists, Methodists, etc. A full 
account of the recent exercise of the ministry of healing through 
faith, by Dorothea Trudell, Samuel Zeller, Pastor Blumhardt, Pastor 
Rein, Pastor Stockmayer, Dr. Cullis, and others. With all this is 
joined an extended examination of the subject in the light of Scrip- 
ture, Church history, theology and experience. 

In Christ; or, The Believer's Union with His Lord. By Rev. A. J. 
Gordon, D. D. i2mo, fine cloth, 210 pages, $1.00. 

We do not remember since Thomas a Kempis a book so thoroughly 
imbued with great personal love to Christ. It is evidently the happy 
result of hours of high communion with him.— Boston Courier. 

The Two- Fold Life; or Christ's Work for Us, and Christ's Work in 
Us. By Rev. A. J. Gordon, D. D. i2mo, fine cloth, 285 
pages, $1.25. 

This is a powerful and timely defence of Christian doctrine, experi- 
ence and practice ; of experience resulting from sound doctrine, and 
of practice resulting from heart-felt experience. It is not contro- 
versial, but a living testimony to the renovating power of the faith 
once delivered to the saints. * * * Its perusal will amply repay 
the reader who wishes to become a full-grown Christian.— C. H. 
Spurgeon. 

Grace and Glory. Sermons for the Life that Now Is and That which 
Is to Come. By Rev. A. J. Gordon, D. D. i2mo, fine cloth, 
355 pages, $1.50. 

Here we have power without sensationalism; calm thought, living 
and earnest, expressed in forcible language ; the doctrine orthodox, 
evangelical, practical. We shall be surprised if these discourses are 
not reprinted by an English house.— C. H. Spurgeon. 

Abundant Grace. By W. P. Mackay, M. A., author of Grace and 
Truth. W 7 ith preface by Rev. J. H. Brooks, D. D., and brief 
biographical sketch of the late author. 250 pages, fine beveled 
cloth, $1.00. 

The Holy Life- A book for Christians seeking the " Rest of Faith." 
By Rev. Evan H. Hopkins. Fifth thousand. i8mo, 115 pp., 
cloth, beveled edge, 60 cents. 

CHICAGO: F. H. BEVELL, U8 & 150 MADISON ST. 

8 



POPULAR WORKS FOR ALL CLASSES. 

The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life. By Hannah Whit- 
all Smith; author of "The Open Secret." Revised edition from 
entirely new plates. i2mo, 240 pp., paper 50 cents; cloth, 75 
cents"; cloth, gilt, $1.00. 

A book we unhesitatingly recommend. We have not for years 
read a book with more delight and profit.— Southwestern Christian 
Advocate. 

We are delighted with the book. It reaches the very core of 
Christian experience.— Baptist Weekly. 

Worthy of universal circulation.— Cft ristian Union. 

The Open Secret. By Hannah Whitall Smith, author of "Chris- 
tian's Secret of a Happy Life," etc. 320 pp., cloth, $1.00. 

That the author of this work has a faculty of presenting the "Secret 
Things" that are revealed in the Word of God is apparent to all who 
have read the exceedingly popular work "The Christian's Secret of a 
Happy Life," and such will not be disappointed in expecting to find 
in this new volume a fulless and sweetness in the unfolding of God's 
Word, in its application to the practical daily duties of christian living. 

Walking Worthy Of Cod. A reprint from the works of Rev. John 
Flayell, with an introduction by (and published at the request 
of) Maj. D. W. Whittle. A valuable book for circulation — an 
incentive to Christian living. Square, i6mo, 43 pp., 15 cents. 

Gems from f^orthfield. A Record of the best thoughts exchanged 
at the Conference for Bible study, convened at Northfield, by D. 
L. Moody. i2mo, 116 pp., cloth, §1.00. 

The thoughts and expositions of Scripture which are presented in 
this volume are of rare practical value.— Herald ana Preshyter. 

Recollections of Henry Moorehouse, Evangelist. By George 

C. Needham. 240 pp., i5mo, cloth, beveled, $1.00. 

Mr. Moorehouse, the young English evangelist, was well-known 
throughout this country, and the volume is the most interesting 
biographical sketch of this remarkable man — a real inspiration. 

Christians of every name gathered about him; and ministers with 
long vears of successful work, and young converts just entering the 
field alike sat at his feet to study the Word. * * * I hope that the 
story of his life will lead many who have not come under his per- 
sonal influence to a more thorough study of God's word.— D.L.Moody. 

Plain Ta!ks About the Theatre. By Rev. Herrick Johnson, 

D. D. Fifth thousand. 84 pp., cloth, 50 cents; paper, 20 cents. 

Probably the modem theatre never received such a raking fire. - 
Zion's Herald. 

As crushing as a charge of cavalry, and as convincing as logic can 
make truth. A terrific indictment of the theatre— The Advance. 

May Christian's Dance? By Rev. J. H. Brookes, D. D. 144pp., 
i6mo., cloth, 50 cents; paper covers, 25 cents. 

An able and wholesome consideration of the question from a 
Christian point of view.— Zion's Herald. 

CHICAGO: F. H. BEVELL, 148 & 150 MADISON ST. 
9 



POPULAR WORKS FOR ALL CLASSES. 

Fred's Dark Days. By Rose Hartwick Thorpe. A story of hero- 
ism in boyhood, written in an attractive style by the author of 
"Curfew Must Not Ring To-night," and "The Yule Log." An 
excellent book for the young. 139 pp., cloth, 75 cents. 

Fifty Years and Beyond: or, Old Age and How to Enjoy It. Com- 
piled by Rev. S. G. Lathrop. Twenty-fifth thousand. One 
large i2mo volume, of over 400 pages, $1.00. Presentation edi- 
tion, gilt edges, $1.50. 

The object of this volume is to give to that great army who are 
fast hastening toward the "great beyond" some practical hints and 
helps as to the best way to make the most of the remainder of the 
life that now is, and to give comfort and help as to the life that is 
to come. 

Songs for the Service of Prayer. Compiled by R. S. Thain, 
assisted by A. E. Kittredge, D. D., E. P. Goodwin, D. D., and 
W. M. Lawrence, D. D. A book specially adapted for use in 
the social meetings of the church. Cloth, 240 pp., 60 cents. 
Special terms to churches for introduction. 

RevelTs Record for Church Treasurers. The most convenient 
record yet published. Weekly envelope system. Simple, prac- 
tical and systematic. Bound in half leather, quarto, $1.50. 

The Man Traps of the City. By Rev. Thomas E. Green. 

A book of timely warnings, where sin and crime are shorn of 
their mask. The life of the profligate is not presented in attrac- 
tive colors, but in such a way as to stand forth in its true light — a 
thing to be abhorred. 

140 pages, cloth, rich gold stamp, 75 cents. Same in illumin- 
ated paper covers, 35 cents. 

Woman's Ministry, and other Expository Addresses. By Mrs. 
George C. Needham. 137 pp., i6mo, cloth, 75 cents. 

The first expository address gives character' to this book. It is 
literally an exposition bearing on the question of woman's relation 
to preaching and teaching. 

Interesting and Instructive Readings for the Young. By 

C. H. Jones. Illustrated. A collection, original and selected, 
of Stories for Children and Youth. 357 pp., carmine cloth, rich 
gilt stamp, $1.00. This collection is not only entertaining, but is 
practically helpful and instructive. 



CHICAGO: F. H. BEVELL, US & 150 MADISON ST. 
10 



PREMILLENN1AL WORKS. 

Pre-Rflillennial Essays. A series of papers on prophetical subjects 
by eminent writers. Edited by Nathaniel West, D. D. Issued 
in one large i2mo volume of 500 pages, $1.50. Among the con- 
tributors to this volume are are Rev. S. H. Kellogg, D. D.; Rev. 
A. S. Gordon, D, D.; Rev. H. M. Parsons, D. D.; Bishop Nich- 
olson; Rev. J. H. Brookes, D. D.; Dr. W. P. Mackay, M. A. 

Those who desire to have, within the compass of a single volume, 
all that is necessary to an intelligent consideration of the subject, 
will find it here in a very readable form. It is certainly the ablest 
work that has appeared on the pre-millennial side.— Canada Presby- 

The best treatment of this subject from the pre-millennial side that 
has ever been published.— The Standard. 

Are Pre-IYIillennialists Right? or, Reasons for Believing in the 
Pre-Millennial Advent of Christ, with a Brief Review of the 
Objections of Dr. Brown and others. By S. H. Kellogg, D. D. 
Paper, i2mo, 84 pp., and cover, 25 cents. 

Maranatha; or, the Lord Cometh. By Rev. J. H. Brookes, D. D. 
445 pp.; cloth, $1.25; paper, 50 cents. 

Second Coming of Christ. By Rev. J. H. Brookes, D. D. Price 
15 cents. 

The Blessed Hope; or, The Glorious Coming of the Lord. By 
Willis Lord, D. D. New and cheaper edition. A practical 
treatise; a volume well adapted to lead to a more joyous Christian 
life. 250 pp., cloth, $1.00. Cheap edition, for circulation, paper 
covers, only 25 cents. 

Second Coming of Christ- By George Muller, of Bristol, Eng. 
A neat little tract of 32 pages, suitable for circulation. Per dozen 
40 cents; 100 copies, $2.50. 

Jesus is Coming. By W. E. B. A most popular hand book. Six- 
teenth thousand. Giving seven arguments in favor of the pre- 
millennial coming — stating the distinction between the Rapture 
and the Revelation, and between the Church and the Kingdom — 
and containing a diagram, with explanations. New, enlarged 
edition, 160 pp., cloth, 50 cents; paper covers, 15 cents. 

Twenty Reasons for Believing that the Second Coming of the 
Lord is Near. 34 pp. and cover, neat, 15 cents. Per dozen, $1.00. 

Epiphainia. A study in Prophecy. By E. J. Edgren, Professor of 
Biblical Interpretation in the Morgan Park Theological Seminary. 
i6mo, 112 pp., cloth, neat, 75 cents. 

Dr. Edgren writes as one who both loves and reveres the Sacred 
Word. He has altogether made a book creditable in a literary not 
less than in an evangelical point of view.— Chicago Standard. 

Waiting for the Morning, and Other Poems. By the author of 
"Twenty Reasons for Believing the Coming of the Lord is Near." 
Square i6mo, 54 pp., red line, cloth, 50 cts.; paper covers, 25 cts. 

The Second Coming of Christ. By D. L. Moody. Revised. 
Forty-second thousand. 32 pp. and cover, 10c. Per doz., $1.00. 

CHICAGO: F. H. BEVELL, 148 & 150 MADISON ST. 
11 



Works of D. L. Moody. 



Prevailing Prayer; What Hinders It. Paper covers, 30 cents, 
cloth, 60 cents. 

An earnest and solemn work, full of helpful hints on the aids 
and hindrances to prevailing prayer. 
To The Work ! To The Work ! A Trumpet Call. Exhortations 
to Christians. Paper cover, 30 cents; cloth, 60 cents. 

This new work by Mr. Moody is in the line of his most success- 
ful effort, that of stirring Christians to active, personal, aggressive 
work. 

The Way to Cod, and How to Find It, Thirty-fourth thousand. 
Paper cover, 30 cents; cloth, 60 cents. 

An excellent manual for the soul-winner and the awakened sin- 
ner, which we trust will be the means of leading thousands to Chris- 
tian life and heaven— Zion's Herald. 

Heaven; its Hope; its Inhabitants; its Happiness; its Riches; its 
Reward. Eighty-fourth thousand. Paper cover, 30 cents; cloth, 
60 cents. 

While adapted to the humblest capacity, it will command the 
attention of the mature and thoug-htf ul.— National Presbyterian. 

Mr. Moody's unfaltering- faith and rugged enthusiasm are mani 
f ested on every -page.— Christian Advocate. 

Secret Power; or the Secret of Success in Christian Life and Work. 
Paper cover, 30 cents; cloth, 60 cents. 

A deeply earnest and helpful book on the work of the Holy Spirit 
in the believer, inciting to more diligent effort and to a more perfect 
use of the privileges of the "Sons of God." 

Twelve Select Sermons. One hundred and thirtieth thousand. 
Paper cover, 30 cents; cloth, 60 cents. 

With the effect of these addresses, when spoken, the whole land 
is acquainted, and now that they are printed, they will tend to keep 
in force the impression they have already made.— Methodist. 

Daniel, the Prophet, 64 pp., i6mo. Paper cover, 20 cents ; cloth, 
flexible, 40 cents. 

The Full Assurance Of Faith. Some thoughts on Christian con- 
fidence. Paper cover, 15 cents; cloth, flexible, 25 cents. 

The Way and the Word, Sixtieth thousand. Comprising "Re- 
generation," and "How to Study the Bible.' ' Cloth, 25 cents; 
paper, 15 cents. 

How to Study the Bible. Forty-fifth thousand. Cloth, 15 cents; 
paper, 10 cents. 

The Second Coming of Christ. Thirty-fourth thousand. Paper 
cover, 10 cents. 

Inquiry Meetings. By Mr. Moody and Maj. Whittle. Paper cover 
15 cents. 

Small Gospel Booklets. By D. L. Moody. 12 separate sermons. 
Published in small square form, suitable for distribution or enclosing 

in letters. 35 cents per dozen, $2.50 per hundred. May be had assorted 

or of any separate tract. Sold only in packets. 

Any of the above sent postpaid to any address on receipt of price. 
Special rates for distribution made knownon application* 



CHICAGO; F. H. REVELL, 148 <& 150 MADISON ST. 



